The Hindu : Front Page : Mayawati threatens to withdraw support

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Tuesday, Jan 08, 2008
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Mayawati threatens to withdraw support

Vinay Kumar

Sees conspiracy to eliminate her

NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati on Monday charged certain Congress leaders with hatching a “deep conspiracy” to eliminate her, and threatened to withdraw support to the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre anytime after January 15.

A meeting of the BSP officer-bearers, MLAs and MPS would be convened to a take a final decision, she told a press conference here. The party has 19 members in the Lok Sabha and seven in the Rajya Sabha.

Ms. Mayawati said Central and State intelligence agencies were in the know of the “political and social reasons” behind the conspiracy to eliminate her. Following a heightened threat perception, the State government wrote to the Centre requesting Special Protection Group security for her but there was no response.

“The Congress will be responsible if anything happens to me,” the Chief Minister said. However, in reply to a question, she did not say anything against its president Sonia Gandhi.

Terrorism menace

Hitting out at the Congress and the UPA coalition, particularly in the wake of the criticism by some Congress leaders that her government failed to foil the January 1 terrorist attack on the Rampur CRPF camp, Ms. Mayawati said there was no use in indulging in a blame game. “All parties should rise above narrow political considerations and launch coordinated efforts to secure our borders and root out the menace of terrorism from the country.”

She said: “Terror strikes have taken place in Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra as well. When the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government was at the Centre, we witnessed the Parliament House coming under terrorist attack. You have to rise above political consideration to tackle terrorism which is going on not for just one or two years. Terrorists are infiltrating from across the border, they do not need valid visas and passports to come here.”

“I am the Chief Minister of U.P. and after all our intelligence department is not so weak,” she shot back, while declining to name anyone when she was asked to elaborate her charge that certain Congress leaders were conspiring to eliminate her and were patronising the expelled Samajwadi Party member Atiq Ahmed, whom she called a “mafia.”

Ms. Mayawati accused the UPA government of following the BJP-led NDA regime’s ways of “harassing her and trying to get her involved in fake cases.” She said it was not allowing the Central Bureau of Investigation to finalise its report on the disproportionate assets case against her and was deliberately employing “delaying tactics.” The CBI was “harassing” persons who had given her “gifts” although the Income Tax Department settled the matter.

Also, she alleged, the Centre was turning a deaf ear to her demand for a special financial package of Rs. 80,000 crore for the development of the backward regions of eastern U.P. and Bundelkhand.

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