Mayawati hits back at Shah, says BJP has ‘notorious goondas’
LUCKNOW: Stung by unrelenting barbs of BJP chief Amit Shah, BSP supremo Mayawati on Monday hit back saying the saffron party has “notorious goondas” and everyone was aware of Shah’s history as well.
She also trained guns at the Samajwadi Party government, saying in the interest of the state, the chief minister should rise above oneupmanship and family feud and look after lawand-order situation of the state.
She also said any move by SP to enter into a grand alliance proved that it had accepted defeat even before the polls.
“BJP mein itney namigirami goonday hain...main naam ginaney lag jaoon...aur iski shuruwat Gujarat sey hoti hai... Amit Shah ka kya itihas raha hai yeh aapko pata hai (BJP has a number of notorious criminals...if I started counting names...
The list starts with Gujarat... You already know Amit Shah’s history),” she told newspersons here.
“Not only in UP, in the country also BJP has goondas, mafia and criminal elements... you all know about it well,” she said in response to the allegations made by Shah during his party’s Parivatran Yatras.
Shah had alleged that BSP like the ruling SP had goondas and criminal elements.
Making light of BJP’S promise to bring a change in the state in the upcoming Assembly polls, Mayawati said it will meet the same fate in Uttar Pradesh as in Delhi, Bihar, West Bengal and southern states.
“I have convened the press conference especially to expose BJP and its national leaders who are going about making tall claims and to give them a befitting reply so that common people do not fall prey to their Lok Sabha-like promises,” she said. Dubbing the Narendra Modi government as antifarmer, she said his claims of clearing sugarcane dues of farmers in the state were far from truth. LUCKNOW: A day after holding marathon talks with Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav, Congress poll strategist Prashant Kishor on Monday held closed-door meeting with Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav fuelling speculation that a grand alliance could be on the anvil for the 2017 Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
Monday’s meeting assumes significance as the 43-year-old chief minister is expected to have a major say in ticket distribution and choice of seats to be contested by his party in case an alliance is cobbled together.
There has been speculation of a “maha-gathbandhan” among erstwhile Janata Parivar parties and Congress to check BJP in its tracks Kishor met Akhilesh and was with him for nearly three hours during which they are understood to have discussed threadbare the state’s political scenario ahead of the upcoming elections.
However, Akhilesh sounded cautious and not in a hurry when he said factors like who will benefit and who will lose in case of an alliance have to be considered. “Elections are near, who will be benefited, who will lose (in alliance) is to be taken note of. The decision is to be taken by party’s national president,” Akhilesh told reporters.
“I will give my suggestions only at party platform,” he said.
When asked specifically about the possibility of SP joining the hands with Congress, Akhilesh parried a direct reply, saying “If SP and Congress want alliance, will you (media) stop it?” He did not elaborate on the query made against the backdrop of Kishor’s two rounds of meeting with Mulayam here on Sunday, triggering speculation of a ‘maha-gathbandhan’ (grand alliance) similar to the one in Bihar. Kishor’s back-to-back talks with Mulayam and Akhilesh come close on the heels of top leaders of socialist-leaning parties attending SP’S silver jubilee meet -- a move seen as an attempt by Mulayam to forge an alliance for the crucial polls hardly a few months away.