The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati extended her support to the 'One Nation, One Election' idea with the rider that it should be in the public interest.
She continued her attack on the BJP and the Congress for slowly making ‘ineffective’ reservations for SC/ST and for OBCs reiterating that her party would continue to fight to uphold it.
The BSP chief was addressing the media in Lucknow on Thursday after a meeting with party functionaries in which she undertook an examination of directions given to them with regards to the upcoming by-poll on 10 seats in the state.
She said that OBCs had done a disservice to themselves by keeping themselves away from the SC/ST. “Now there is a need to get serious about caste census and not allow the BJP and the Congress to succeed in their conspiracies”, she said.
Mayawati also clubbed the Samajwadi Party with the others and said that all these parties were guilty of adopting a constantly changing, chameleon-like attitude towards OBCs and SC/ST.
For the by-elections, she said that instead of talking about issues that matter, both the BJP and other opposition parties were talking only about casteism and communalism. “This gives us the opportunity to make our space and will benefit us in the by-election”, she said.
She questioned the claims of the UP government on job generation saying that even if the government statements were true then given the population of the state, it was a very small drop. “This will not improve the situation…there is a huge backlog in government jobs”, she said.
Regarding the issue of crimes against women, she said, it was also being diluted by caste and communal concerns; and this was making tackling those crimes even more challenging.
Mayawati also dubbed a ‘huge relief’ to the Supreme Court’s stop on bulldozer action. In these and all other matters, which the public does not agree with, there must be some guidelines, she insisted.
The BSP supremo also said her party will be fighting the upcoming by-polls with complete honesty and with the party machinery putting it in full strength.