India News | Both Congress, BJP Anti-Dalit, Anti-backward: Mayawati in Jaunpur
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Terming the Congress and the BJP anti-Dalit and anti-backward, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati said on Tuesday that their intentions and thinking are against reservation.
Jaunpur (UP), May 21 (PTI) Terming the Congress and the BJP anti-Dalit and anti-backward, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati said on Tuesday that their intentions and thinking are against reservation.
Mayawati, while addressing an election rally organised here in support of party candidate and local MP Shyam Singh Yadav, said when the first Congress government was formed at the Centre, B R Ambedkar, who was the law minister, told "Jawahar Lal Nehru and company" that the SCs and STs were not getting the full benefits of reservation given in the Constitution in the government jobs.
Ambedkar asked the government to take strict action in this matter to ensure that the SCs amd STs get full benefits, she said.
Mayawati said Ambedkar advocated providing reservation facilities to the extremely backward classes and had asked Nehru that he should give them reservation by setting up a commission under Section 340. But the Congress government did not pay heed to Ambedkar's words due to which he resigned as the law minister, the BSP chief said.
"Today the Congress says they were not against reservation and the Constitution. But their ancestors worked against the Constitution and did not give the full benefits of reservation to you people (Dalits and Backwards). And the commission was not constituted," she said.
Mayawati said the BJP is also not lagging behind the Congress in this matter. The intentions and thinking of all these parties are against reservation, she alleged.
Describing the Congress as anti-Dalit and anti-backward, she said the BSP was formed because of that.
"If the Congress had sincerely fulfilled its responsibility in the beginning, we would not have needed to form the BSP," she said.
Mayawati claimed that like the Congress, the BJP will be out of power if there are not irregularities in the voting machines (EVMs).
She said, "For the past many years, the BJP and its allies have been in power at the Centre and the states. But like the Congress, now it seems that the BJP will not easily come back to power at the Centre due to their wrong policies, and casteist and narrow thinking.
"The BJP is not going to come back, provided this election is free and fair and no tampering is done in the voting machine," she added.
Accusing the BJP and the RSS of exploitation and oppression of the Muslim community, the former chief minister assured that all this will stop if her party comes to power.
Apart from the Jaunpur candidate, she appealed to the public in favour of the BSP candidates from the Varanasi division -- Kripashankar Saroj from Machhlishahr (reserved), Athar Jamal Lari from Varanasi, Satyendra Kumar Maurya from Chandauli, Lallan Singh Yadav from Ballia and Umesh Kumar Singh from Ghazipur.
Voting will be held in Jaunpur in the sixth phase of Lok Sabha elections on May 25.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)