Nagpur, Apr 11 (PTI) Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati on Thursday accused the BJP of helping capitalists, wealthy individuals and taking financial assistance from them through electoral bonds and added her party did not take a single paisa through the scheme.
Mayawati emphasised no ‘jumla’ (rhetoric) or guarantee will work for the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections because people have realized that not even one-fourth of promises made by the ruling party have been fulfilled and they have yet to see ‘achhe din’ (good days) assured by it.
She raised concerns over reliability of Electronic Voting Machine (EVMs) and holding of free and fair elections.
Mayawati was addressing an election rally in Nagpur in support of BSP Lok Sabha candidates contesting in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region.
The BJP will not come to power at the Centre easily this time because of their “casteist, capitalist, narrow-minded and hate-filled” policies, and if free and fair elections are held and EVMs are not tampered with, maintained the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister.
The veteran politician alleged the BJP has directed most of its efforts in making capitalists more wealthy.
The saffron outfit and most other political parties run their organisations and fight elections with financial support from capitalists and wealthy individuals, and this was revealed in the data on electoral bonds released by the State Bank of India (SBI), said the former CM.
“They took money from the wealthy, but the BSP did not take a single paisa via electoral bonds from any capitalists or wealthy people,” he said.
Mayawati alleged that the BJP-led government at the Centre, like Congress regimes of the past, has politicised central investigative agencies.
The BSP leader noted farmers are suffering under the current government and added when her party was in power in Uttar Pradesh, it took care of cultivators.
Because of the BJP and the Congress’s casteist, sectarian and pro-capitalist policies, the poor, Dalits, tribals, backward communities, Muslims and other minorities in the country have not progressed much.
Mayawati alleged vacant government posts reserved for Dalits, tribals and OBCs have not been filled for several years.
Along with Dalits, the condition of Muslims and other religious minorities is very bad in the country and this was revealed in the 2006 Sachar committee report as well, the former CM maintained.
In the last few years, the development of Muslims and other religious minorities has stopped to a large extent, and even condition of the poor from “upper-caste” communities is not so good, claimed the BSP president.
Mayawati accused the BJP government of pursuing wrong agrarian and economic policies, and claimed under its watch, even borders of the country are not safe completely.
She appealed to voters to stop the BJP-led NDA and the INDIA alliance from coming to power at the Centre and advised them not to pay attention to opinion polls, surveys and manifestos and announcements of ruling and non-BSP opposition parties.
The former CM said the Congress denied the Bharat Ratna to social reformer Babasaheb Ambedkar for decades.
The grand old party, then in power at the Centre, did not declare a day of national mourning when BSP founder Kanshi Ram passed away in 2006, Mayawati added.