New Delhi: BSP chief Mayawati addressing media in Parliament in New Delhi on Tuesday. (PTI Photo)
Claiming she was being denied sufficient opportunity to speak on alleged atrocities against Dalits in the House, BSP chief Mayawati Tuesday threatened to resign from the membership of Rajya Sabha. Late afternoon, she personally submitted a three-page resignation letter, addressed to the Rajya Sabha chairman. But her resignation is unlikely to be accepted since the letter is not in the prescribed format.
Mayawati’s Rajya Sabha term ends next April and the BSP does not have enough MLAs in the UP assembly to get her re-elected. If she were to seek another term, she will need the support of the SP and Congress.
As soon as the House met Tuesday, Mayawati raised the issue of caste violence in Saharanpur. Deputy chairman P J Kurien permitted her to speak, but only for three minutes. She wanted the House to suspend all listed business and take up a discussion on the attacks on Dalits. She alleged that atrocities against the poor, Dalits, backward, minorities, workers, farmers and the middle class were on the rise ever since the NDA came to power at the Centre. This triggered angry protests from BJP members.
The chair stopped her after three minutes. “You made your point. I understood it. I have to allow others also. You can’t monopolise. You can’t do that,” Kurien said.
“Let me complete… this is a serious issue… I have not finished… I will resign from Rajya Sabha today. I have no moral right to be in the House if I am not allowed to put across my views on atrocities being committed against my community… Dalits,” Mayawati said, before walking out.
Her announcement took even the Opposition by surprise. At the Opposition meeting before the House met, BSP leader Satish Chandra Mishra had told leaders that Mayawati would take raise the attacks but they had no idea what was to follow. Later, Opposition leaders, including Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, met Mayawati to dissuade her from taking a hasty decision.
Mayawati’s dramatic move appeared a well-crafted attempt to reclaim political ground among the Dalit electorate in UP. The BSP has virtually been decimated in the 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 UP Assembly polls.
The BJP has since been working to make inroads in Mayawati’s Dalit support base. The decision to field Ram Nath Kovind, a Dalit from UP, is seen as part of these efforts.
Mayawati has additional reasons to be worried since the Dalits were mobilised under the banner of the Bhim Army, outside the BSP umbrella, during the Dalit-Thakur caste violence in Saharanpur.
