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Be ready for Lok Sabha polls, says Mayawati

Photo: Akhilesh Kumar

Welcome: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati being felicitated by former Union Minister Harmohan Dhawan during a rally in Chandigarh on Sunday.

Chandigarh: Predicting that Lok Sabha polls could be held any time, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Sunday asked party cadres to be prepared to fight the elections independently and criticised her political opponents for “spreading lies” that BSP is anti-upper castes.

“In the wake of deadlock between the Congress and the Left parties over the Indo-US nuclear deal, the UPA Government can go any time. There is a strong possibility that Lok Sabha polls can be held any time now. Therefore, we will have to remain geared up to face the polls,” Mayawati told a rally here, in which former Union Minister Harmohan Dhawan formally announced merger of his Chandigarh Vikas Manch with the BSP.

Mayawati announced that Mr. Dhawan, whose four Councillors in the Municipal Corporation here also joined the BSP, would be her party’s candidate next time from Chandigarh parliamentary seat.

Mayawati devoted over 20 minutes of her nearly one-hour-long speech asking party cadres to work hard to dispel the myth that the BSP was anti-upper castes. She accused both Congress and BJP for ignoring the common people at the cost of benefiting capitalists and big industrial groups. “If Congress thought we are against upper castes, then why did they fight the 1996 U.P. polls with us? If BJP, too, thought so, why did they have a tie-up with us earlier,” she asked.

Making a strong bid to woo upper castes to its fold, the BSP chief said senior leader Satish Chander Mishra, a Brahmin, has been given huge responsibilities.

“If we had anything against upper castes, why did we take Harmohan Dhawan or (BSP’s Himachal Pradesh chief) Vijay Singh Mankotia into our party fold,” Mayawati asked, stressing that her party’s ultimate aim is to establish a caste-less and class-less society, where everybody would be treated as equals. Lamenting that weaker sections of the society are not getting full benefit of reservation, she said if BSP comes to power at the Centre, she will initiate steps to have a constitutional amendment so that religious minorities and economically weaker sections among the upper castes are included in the reserved category. PTI

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