Mayawati accuses BJP of stopping Dayashankar’s arrest Democratic Convention starts today Bank employees to go on strike this Friday

Stepping up attack on BJP, Mayawati on Sunday alleged that it had "pressurised" the Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh into lodging a First Information Report against her and was preventing arrest of Dayashankar Singh, who made derogatory remarks against her. The Bahujan Samaj Party chief claimed the controversy was raked up by BJP ahead of 2017 UP Assembly polls to distract people's attention from the issues of atrocities on Dalits in Gujarat raised by her inside and outside Parliament. She alleged the remarks made by her party leaders, who were protesting against expelled BJP leader Singh, were deliberately misconstrued by the saffron party, reflecting its "polluted" and "casteist" mentality. Mayawati also vowed to take stringent action in the whole episode once BSP comes to power in UP, if Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who calls her "'Bua' does not ensure the arrest and take stern action against Singh". The Democratic National Convention will be held from Monday to Thursday in Philadelphia. Hillary Clinton, her family, politicians and advocates will get top billing as speakers. US President Barack Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, first lady Michelle Obama and Bill Clinton are all scheduled to speak. The proceedings will kick off in Philadelphia on July 25 at 12.30 am IST.

This will also be an occasion for her rival, Bernie Sanders, whose 1,900-member delegation to the convention will be vocal, to make his presence felt. This group will press to extract major concessions from Hillary Clinton in return for their support. Sanders’ speech is scheduled for Monday night and the theme is ‘United Together’. One night will be devoted to the economy and countries such as India and China will listen to the speeches made on that day, carefully. Another night will feature the ‘Mothers of the Movement’, the mothers of Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and other African-Americans who have died in high-profile incidents over the past few years. Friday will see around a million bank employees going on an all-India strike to oppose government policies related to the banking sector. The strike is to oppose measures to merge public sector banks, appointment of private individuals as executives to these banks, and to demand action against wilful corporate defaulters. The strike has been called by the All India Bank Employees’s Association. Employees of public sector banks, old private banks, regional rural banks, foreign banks, and co-operative banks will participate in the strike. Bank of Baroda has already announced to its customers that it has got a strike notice.