RSS raising population issue to divert attention: Mayawati

LUCKNOW: Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati on Saturday alleged that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is raising issues related to religious conversion and the population policy to divert people's attention from the failures of the BJP government at the Centre.
She also said the "silence" of the RSS on the present situation in the country is harmful.
“The discordant voice being raised by the RSS now over the new population policy and religious conversion for diverting the attention of the people of the country reeling under the curse of a massive inflation, unemployment, violence and disorder is grossly improper. This is a planned conspiracy to divert the attention from the failures of the BJP government,” she said at a meeting of state-level office-bearers and leaders of BSP which she had called ahead of the urban local body polls in the state scheduled, most likely, in December.
“It’s an irony that RSS supports BJP blindfolded and with its full might in every election but never opposes its anti-people policies openly,” Maya added. She said that the central and the BJP governments in the states have failed to use population as an asset because of their “anti-poor and pro-corporate policies” and it is to “divert public attention that they are presenting the population as a liability and giving the whole matter a communal colour”. Her comments came in the wake of RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale saying religious conversions and illegal migration from Bangladesh are leading to a “population imbalance” in the country.
Addressing reporters after a four-day all-India working committee meeting of the RSS in Prayagraj on Wednesday, Hosabale had said the organisation is trying to raise awareness on conversions. He also said the existing laws to prevent religious conversion need to be implemented strictly. Mayawati also gave her party organization a rejig ahead of the urban local body polls and doled out new and significant responsibilities to seniors in the party. Imran Masood, who had joined the party on Wednesday, was made in-charge of the party’s western UP zone on the day of joining itself. On Saturday, the party’s incharges for the other zones were also appointed.
She exhorted her party workers and office-bearers to work hard, increase the party’s reach among voters and emerge as a strong alternative to the BJP. She also asked the party workers to keep holding cadre meetings, as has been the party’s tradition, to increase the party’s mass base and for its missionary works. She instructed that her birthday on January 15, which is celebrated as a People’s Welfare Day by the party on a wide scale in the country and especially UP, should be "an austere affair celebrated to help the poor and destitute".