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Mayawati dials Akhilesh, extends support amid reports that CBI may quiz him
Mayawati dialled Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Akhilesh Yadav and extended her full support to him after reports emerged that he might be quizzed by the CBI in connection with the mining scam.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati has called up Akhilesh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and assured him that they would together take on the BJP, which she accused of “dirty tricks” and “disgusting politics.” The phone call came amid reports that Yadav might be questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in an illegal sand mining case.
“Mayawati told Akhilesh that these kind of dirty tricks are nothing new for the BJP and the public is fully aware of it. There is no reason to worry and we must fight strongly against such conspiracies,” the BSP said in a statement
Mayawati accused BJP of being involved in “disgusting politics” and said the Centre was using the state machinery to carry out vendetta against opponents.
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal also attacked the BJP and said it was time to throw out the “dictatorial and undemocratic regime”. “In its last weeks in office, Modi government shamelessly unleashing CBI on Akhilesh Yadav a reminder to all that we must not forget what Modi’s political opponents have faced during last five years,” he tweeted.
The Congress questioned the timing of the raids and termed the CBI’s move as “vendetta politics” of the BJP. Senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad accused the BJP government of “misusing” probe agencies like the CBI, Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax
On Saturday, the CBI carried out searches at 14 places in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi in an ongoing investigation of a case relating to alleged illegal mining of minor minerals in the state’s Hamirpur district. There were also reports that then UP chief minister Akhilesh would also be questioned by the CBI. Akhilesh also held the mining portfolio between 2012 and 2013.
The SP chief has questioned the timing of the raids and said he is “ready to take up any challenge.”
“Why have they taken six years to include me in the probe? No one had ever questioned or investigated my role till now. In six years, no notice, no mention of my name was ever made. Suddenly, the ruling dispensation decided to probe my role as a minister. It’s a second thought, a desperate move by the BJP leadership to browbeat us,” he said, linking the raids to an “in-principle seat-sharing agreement” announced by his party and the BSP for this year’s general election.
The parties of Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav, arch rivals for years as they have battled for supremacy in Uttar Pradesh, have aligned with the stated objective of keeping out the BJP. Both were flattened by the BJP in UP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and then the 2016 assembly elections.
On Sunday, Akhilesh had said the details of his party’s seat-sharing agreement with Mayawati’s BSP for 2019 will be announced in a week.”
The opposition, led by the SP and BSP, defeated the ruling BJP in three Lok Sabha bypolls last year. In Kairana, the BJP lost to the joint opposition candidate, RLD’s Tabassum Hasan. The BJP had also lost the by-elections in Gorakhpur and Phulpur.
In its attack today on the BJP government at the Centre, the BSP accused it of using institutions like the CBI to target its opponents.
An inquiry into alleged illegal mining in Hamirpur began after the Allahabad high court’s order following allegations that public servants, in criminal conspiracy with other accused, allowed illegal mining of minor minerals in the district between 2012 and 2016. It was alleged that they illegally granted fresh leases for mining of sand, renewed existing leases and permitted obstructed period to the existing leaseholders, thereby causing losses to the government exchequer.
Akhilesh said the BJP has shown its true colours and was unleashing the CBI on its political opponents. “BJP has shown its true colours... that it will go to any extent in the next polls, using anything—be it money or CBI. BJP must understand that CBI does not vote, it is people who vote,” he added.
Akhilesh asserted that the SP and BSP will ally and contest polls together. “Whatever CBI has to do, let it,” he said.
The BJP has said that Akhilesh “presided over a government that was hand-in-glove with the mining syndicate in the state”.
Responding to the SP chief’s allegation, UP minister Siddharth Nath Singh said CBI does not work “keeping mind the timing of elections or gathbandhans (alliances).”
Singh also said Akhilesh is anwerable because he held the mining portfolio in UP between 2012 and 2013.
