« Back to article

Print this article

Cong responsible for farmers' stir: Mayawati

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Sunday accused the Congress of fuelling farmers' protests on the issue of land acquisition and said her political opponents were hatching a conspiracy to weaken her party.

"The Congress was only responsible for the demonstrations by the peasantry," she said referring to the recent farmers' agitation in Bhatta and Parsaul villages in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

She advocated a uniform land acquisition policy for the entire country. "We will raise the issue in Parliament for bringing uniform land acquisition policy," the UP chief minister said at the north zone convention of the party in Chadigarh.

Click NEXT to read further...

'Opponents hatching conspiracies to weaken the BSP'

Mayawati also accused her political opponents of hatching conspiracies to weaken the BSP and asserted that the party would not bow down to any such tactics.

"After BSP came to power in Uttar Pradesh, the opposition parties with caste-based mindset tried to inflate minor incidents to make the party unstable," she said.

Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi was arrested on the night of May 11 by the UP police after he had slipped unnoticed in pre-dawn hours to the affected area in support of the farmers agitating against the state's land acquisition process for a expressway project.

Gandhi, who had spent nearly 19 hours at Bhatta-Parsaul, the epicentre of the farmers' agitation, was arrested and released later.

Taking the land acquisition issue in UP to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's door, Gandhi had on May 16 complained to him about about alleged "rape" of women and "murder" of farmers there, a charge denied by the Mayawati government.

'Opposition causing hindrances in the pro-poor policies'

Reviving the Bhatta-Parsaul farmers' issue, Congress leader Sachin Pilot had on May 22 visited protestors lodged in Dasna Jail and was arrested on way to the violence-hit areas in Greater Noida to meet families of those injured during the agitation over land acquisition. Four persons, including two policemen, were killed on May 7 during the Bhatta-Parsaul agitation.

Accusing the opposition of causing hindrances in the pro-poor policies adopted by her government in Uttar Pradesh, by taking issues to courts, Mayawati said, "I will not bow down to the conspiracies of political opponents to run down the BSP."

Taking a dig at the Congress leadership, she said, "I did not come to power like other political parties whose leaders got it in inheritance".

Mayawati alleged that the Congress under a conspiracy kept troubling her through the Central Bureau of Investigation in an alleged disproportionate assets case against her. But, "I know how to struggle in troubled times," she said.

'Cong responsible for poverty, unemployment'

Mayawati also alleged that the wrong economic policies of the Congress governments since independence were responsible for poverty and unemployment in the country. "The Centre's various programmes have miserably failed in removing poverty from the country," she said.

She demanded an amendment in the law framed to list Below Poverty Line families so that maximum people can get the benefits under various schemes meant for them.

The BSP chief also castigated the United Progressive Alliance government for various scams plaguing the country and claimed that the money collected through corrupt means was being kept in foreign banks. She said the poverty and unemployment could not be eradicated as the parties coming to power at the Centre were not cadre based.

"As these parties come to the power due to support of industrial houses and big businessmen, the economic policies are framed to help such people. These parties are always under the influence of the industrialists and businessmen," she said.