Mayawati claims support of Muslims, upper castes in UP

“The Muslims have started drifting towards us from the Samajwadi Party. This probably explains Mulayam Singh Yadav’s outburst in Parliament, demanding the Armed Forces be given permission to go in for hot pursuit,” Mayawati said.

She further asserted that after being disillusioned with the BJP, the upper castes too had started gravitating towards her party. “We have 14 members in the Lok Sabha, out of which two are from this section,” she said. The BSP leader’s remarks assume importance in the light of overtures being made by the BSP to gain all-round acceptability. “We’re neither against any caste nor against any religion,” she said.

However, her remarks are a far cry from the heady days during which the BSP gave the war cry Tilak, tarazu aur talwar, inko maaro joote chaar. She claimed that her party won the chairmanship of 17 zila parishads in the recently concluded elections in Uttar Pradesh. “In six other places, our candidates lost by a vote each,” Mayawati said. adding that in 1995, the party had drawn a blank, due to the highhandedness of the then chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav.