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Mayawati promises laws on quota if voted to power

Photo: Ranjeet Kumar

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati being welcomed at the party rally in Patna on Wednesday.

PATNA: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Wednesday promised a series of legislations on reservation and employment should the Bahujan Samaj Party be voted to power in the coming elections to the Lok Sabha.

The BSP chief declared her public meeting here at the Gandhi Maidan as the beginning of her campaign for the elections.

Ms. Mayawati picked holes in the Congress and BJP policies and said she would safeguard the interest of the downtrodden — Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Dalits among Muslims and Christians and other religious minorities.

Accusing the Congress of conspiring to kill her, she said the SPG cover was not granted to her owing to a conspiracy of the Centre at the behest of the Congress. The people would not spare the Congress, she said, and went on to point out how the latter had plotted time and again to prevent a dalit from rising, particularly B.R. Ambedkar right from denying him a place in the Constituent Assembly and in the Lok Sabha.

On the Taj Corridor issue, the U.P. Chief Minister saw the reopening of the case as misuse of government machinery by the Congress to pressure her much as the BJP had resorted to the same tactics while implicating her in false cases.

Ms. Mayawati told the Congress and the BJP that she was not an opportunist. “I’m not like someone whose only aim is to somehow be a minister whichever party or coalition is in power at the Centre,” the BSP leader said.

Ms. Mayawati promised to scrap the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and come up with a new initiative guaranteeing round-the-year permanent employment should she come to power. She would come up with a legislation to distribute government land among the downtrodden, she said.

As for reservation for dalits among the Muslims and the Christians, Ms. Mayawati said her pleas had gone unheard and charged that parties such as the Congress and the BJP were not interested in improving their lot. Her party would not let them down.

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