BSP to go it alone in 2017: Mayawati
PARTY SUPREMO TARGETS KEJRI OVER HIS REPEATED VISITS TO STATE; LIKE HIM SEEKS BHARAT RATNA FOR KANSHI RAM
SBS NAGAR: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Tuesday said the party would contest the coming Punjab assembly elections alone and would have no alliance with any party.
Addressing a rally at the new grain market here, Mayawati appealed to the party workers to be geared up for the elections as people were “ready for the change and did not want to give further chance to the Congress, SAD and BJP”.
Playing the caste factor, Mayawati claimed that Punjab had always seen a chief minister belonging to the Jat Sikh community and political parties had always ignored a leader from Dalit sections. She alleged that the Congress and SAD-BJP had always preferred people from upper castes.
The BSP president targeted Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for his visits to the house of BSP’s founder Kanshi Ram at Rupnagar and Dera Sachkhand Ballan in Jalandhar on Tuesday and identifying him by his caste as a “Bania”, who had “always worked against Dalit and Scheduled Caste people” before he became the CM. She said the AAP convener is repeatedly visiting the state and using the weaker section to realise his political ambitions.
“A four- member panel will visit every constituency in the state to look for suitable candidates and a team of highpowered committee of the party will assist the panellists so that good candidates are fielded,” the BSP supremo said.
Mayawati said that in the past some senior leaders did not give the youth a chance to come forward, but now this would not happen as 50% posts had been given to young leaders. In her more- than- hour- long speech, Mayawati said turncoats had cost the party dear in the past but now, no leader would betray it. The Rajya Sabha MP also took on the SAD-BJP government for its “failure to generate jobs”.
Calling the SAD-BJP government ‘ anti- Dalit’ by citing the Abohar murder case, Mayawati said only the BSP was the right choice for people. She also sought Bharat Ratna for party founder Kanshi Ram. BSP state president Avtar Singh Karimpuri said the state government had damaged the Machhiwara- Rahon bridge across the Sutlej to not let people reach the venue. He said police had also stopped buses of their supporters.