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Going all out to woo the Muslim, the Kshatriya and Vaishya communities, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Sunday made a fervent appeal to them to vote for her Bahujan Samaj Party.
"My birthday (January 15) is just round the corner and unlike the past, we may not be able to celebrate it with the usual pomp and show, There is every possibility that the Election Commission will announce dates for the 2012 assembly elections, thereby bringing in the code of conduct," she told a mammoth rally in Lucknow Sunday afternoon.
"Give me a fifth term this time on my birthday," she appealed to the crowds while urging them to remember the party's new slogan -- Chad vipaksha kee chaati par; batan dabao haathi par. (Ride n the chest of the opposition by pressing the button on the elephant). The crowd that clearly ran into lakhs listened to her with rapt attention as she went about reminding each of the three communities what the party had done for their betterment and told them about her future plans.
Her hour-long address was loaded with a heavy dose of bait for Muslims, whom she went to the extent of promising reservation in government jobs, but with a rider. "Let the Centre amend the reservation law to accord reservation to Muslims over and above the existing reservations and the Bahujan Samaj Party will extend its full support to it," she said.
"I have written several times to the Union government that Muslims must be given reservation in the proportion of their population, but the Centre has just been sitting over my demand," she lamented.
In a bid to remind the Muslim community of how she had shown concern for them by fielding a sizeable number of minority candidates at successive elections, she said, "I have given tickets to Muslims in the past and have ensured that they get adequate representation in the legislature."
She further made it a point to remind them how governments of other political parties failed to prevent harassment of the Muslim youths. "Let me tell you that I made it loud and clear to my cops to ensure that there was no harassment of members of the Muslim community at any cost," she said.
And went on to add, "I also did not allow the central investigating agencies to label any or every Muslim as a terrorist. I firmly believe that the entire community cannot be measured with the same yardstick simply because a handful of people have gone astray."
Alleging that the Congress always betrayed Muslims, she said, "The Congress only used Muslims as vote bank and failed to do anything for their larger good or well being. No one can forget that the maximum number of communal riots took place during the Congress regimes and these left a a sense of insecurity in the minds of Muslims."
Mayawati even went to the extent of accusing the Congress of being "soft" towards the Bharatiya Janata Party. "It was the Congress party's soft policies towards the Bhartiya Janata Party which allowed its allied bodies like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal to thrive ' and what happened in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 (demolition of the Babri Mosque) was a direct consequence of such policies."
Stating that Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav's statement during Ayodhya incident created tension and riots, Mayawati said that in her government law and order was utmost priority and no incident was reported post-Ayodhya title dispute decision.
As if all that was not enough, Mayawati went a step further to impress upon Muslims how her most trusted lieutenant in the cabinet was none other than Naseemuddin Siddiqui, the ruling party's most prominent Muslim face. "My most important Muslim minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui has more than a dozen key portfolios, carrying enormous responsibility" she told the crowds.
Blaming the entire Foreign Direct Investment issue on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, she said, "This 'yuvraj' of the Congress party wants to bring in foreign companies whose aim was to completely destroy small traders; and that is what he proudly calls FDI."