Situation worse than Emergency, govt muzzling opposition’s voice: Mayawati

Launching a scathing attack on the BJP and RSS, Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati on Monday charged the saffron party with hatching a conspiracy to eliminate her during her public meeting in Shabirpur village after Saharanpur violence.

Claiming that the situation was worse than Emergency, she alleged that the central government had let loose the government agencies on opposition leaders to intimidate them.

“The present situation is worse than the Emergency. The BJP is weakening democracy in the country and misusing CBI and other government agencies to silence the leaders of rival parties,” she said.

“The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had the plan to trigger violence in the village in case I made a provocative speech in support of Dalits. BJP ka plan mujhe hamesha ke liye dafan kar dena tha jis se ki BSP khatam ho jaye (BJP wanted to eliminate me to decimate the Bahujan Samaj Party),” Mayawati alleged.

“They failed to assess me. I always make my statement in accordance with the situation,” she said.

Without naming Bhim Army which was held responsible for violence in Saharanpur, Mayawati said the conspirators managed an organisation to execute their plan and lodged cases against it when their plan was exposed.

Terming BJP and RSS as anti-Dalits and anti-poor, she reminded the people about the Rohith Vemula case, atrocities on Dalits in Gujarat’s Una and Saharapur violence to support her claims.

“I decided to resign from the Rajya Sabha on July 17 when I was not allowed to raise my voice against atrocities on the poor and Dalits,” she said.

Comparing her move with the resignation by the then law minister and Dalit icon Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar in September 1951, Mayawati said: “Babasaheb resigned in protest of the lackadaisical attitude of the Nehru-led government in providing women rights equal to men and in support of demand for a commission for reservation to OBCs. Following his footsteps, I also resigned when the ruling party stopped me from speaking for Dalits and poor,” she said.

“I have been working to revive and organise them to convert them into a force which could fight against the BJP-RSS agenda of caste politics,” Mayawati added.

Targeting Modi for making hollow promises to the people, she said the union government was working for the benefit of capitalists and was implementing the agenda of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) which had nothing to do with the welfare of Dalits, OBCs and underprivileged sections of the society.

Mayawati said the Yogi government in UP was following the footsteps of Modi which had resulted in deteriorating law and order situation, violence in the name of cow and poor health services.

She called upon the people to join hands to stop NDA and BJP win the Lok Sabha election in 2019 to prevent it from coming to power in Uttar Pradesh again.

“In 2014 Lok Sabha election, nobody noticed manipulation in EVMs as there was a widespread discontent against the Congress but it was taken into notice in 2017 elections and the BSP launched a statewide protest against it,” she said.

Commencing from Meerut on Monday, the BSP will organise divisional-level rallies in different parts of the state every month.