A day after Sonia Gandhi dared the Uttar Pradesh administration to arrest her in her karmabhoomi Rae Bareli, Mayawati called it a “drama” for “political mileage”
Cong tells her to stop strong-arm tactics
NEW DELHI/ LUCKNOW: The tension between the Congress and Mayawati went a few notches up on Wednesday. A day after Sonia Gandhi dared the Uttar Pradesh administration to arrest her in her karmabhoomi Rae Bareli, Mayawati called it a “drama” for “political mileage” and said she would have “fulfilled” the Congress chief’s wish but didn’t want to “misuse her authority”.
The Congress, in turn, returned fire with fire, demanding that the BSP chief put a stop to her strongarm tactics or else the party would make it difficult for her to tour the rest of the country.
Reacting to Sonia’s challenge, Mayawati told reporters: “If we wanted to display the power of the state administration, then we would not have allowed her [Sonia] to conduct a road show in Rae Bareli and would have arrested her and fulfilled her wish. But we are not the ones to misuse authority.”
Mayawati said, “We had only asked her [Sonia] not to hold a public rally in Lalganj following tension there. The prohibitory orders were not imposed anywhere else in the district.”
“Congress party workers brought their president to Rae Bareli who did a drama of going to jail without any reason and returned to Delhi yesterday [Tuesday],” she said.
Countering Sonia’s charge that the UP government was trying to scuttle the state’s development by cancelling the land allotted for a railway project in Rae Bareli, Mayawati said: “Congress is worried only about Rae Bareli but I am worried about the whole of Uttar Pradesh.”
“The bhoomi pujan for the project [rail coach factory] is a mere drama for political mileage ahead of Lok Sabha elections,” the BSP chief said.
The UP chief minister accused the Centre of stalling developmental schemes in the state, including the Ganga Expressway. Mayawati also announced a ‘maha rally’ to apprise people about the “impediments created by the Centre” in developmental schemes in Uttar Pradesh.
On alleged protests by farmers on the acquisition of land for the rail coach factory at Lalganj, Mayawati said she had constituted a committee under Principal Secretary Netram to inquire into objections of the farmers that would submit its report within three days.
Taking pot-shots at the Congress chief for terming Rae Bareli and Amethi as “karmabhoomi of Firoze, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi and now that of her and Rahul”, Mayawati asked how many jobs “have been given to people of Rae Bareli in the past 44 years of Congress rule in Uttar Pradesh and 48 years of rule at the Centre.
Congress warns Maya: In a thinly veiled threat to Mayawati regarding the UP government’s attempts to prevent Sonia Gandhi from addressing a rally in her Rae Bareli constituency, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said: “Leave alone the Congress president even if she [Mayawati] threatens or harms a single Congress worker we will make it difficult for her to carry out her political activity in any part of the country.”
The Congress also accused Mayawati of stopping the pension of the former CBI director Vijay Shankar Tewari. It was during his tenure as the CBI chief that the agency began corruption cases against her.
The former CBI Director belongs to the UP cadre and under government rules, a no-objection certificate is needed from the parent state before the pension is made available to a retired officer.
“She should mend her ways and put an end to her dictatorship. We are prepared to fill the jails of UP but we will not back down,” said Manish Tewari.
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