Mayawati said that such incidents were happening now like they used to happen during the tenure of the previous Samajwadi Party (SP) government.BSP chief Mayawati on Friday alleged that apart from Brahmins and Dalits, Muslims are being targeted under the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh. She also criticised incidents of B R Ambedkar’s statues being vandalised in the state and asked the government to take immediate action.
Her remarks came in the wake of a recent incident in Jaunpur district of eastern Uttar Pradesh, where villagers staged a protest after a statue of Ambedkar installed on a Gram Sabha plot allegedly went missing.
She said that such incidents were happening now like they used to happen during the tenure of the previous Samajwadi Party (SP) government. “Like Brahmins and Dalits were harassed then, similar things are being done during the present BJP government… Muslims are also being harassed,” Mayawati tweeted in Hindi. She claimed that members of these communities were being “framed in false cases”. She added that during SP rule, statues of Ambedkar and other icons were damaged. “Similarly, during the present BJP government, statues of Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar are being damaged. It happened in Varanasi and now in Jaunpur, which is condemnable…” she tweeted.
Meanwhile, the Jaunpur administration claimed that the incident was the fallout of a row over land and said the accused, who had allegedly stolen the statue, was arrested and the Ambedkar statue has been recovered.