E-Paper
Maya’s motherhood lessons for Maneka
‘Mother’ Mayawati has singled out former Union minister Maneka Gandhi for some stern lessons. Rajesh Kumar Singh reports.
‘Mother’ Mayawati has singled out former Union minister Maneka Gandhi for some stern lessons.
A day after Maneka publicly blamed the Uttar Pradesh chief minister for denying her permission to meet son Varun Gandhi in Etah jail, Mayawati said: “Maneka kewal ek bete ka dard samajhti hain, par main karodo beton ka dard samajhti hun (Maneka feels the pain of her son, but I feel the pain of crores of sons).”
“It’s not necessary to be a mother to understand her pain. Mother Teresa was not a mother… but hundreds all over the world received her love and affection,” Mayawati added at a hurriedly convened press conference in Lucknow on Saturday.
On Friday, Maneka had said: “If Mayawati were a mother she would have understood the pain of a mother. A young man is being harassed due to the prejudice of the administration.”
Mayawati was quick to justify the district administration's action as well as the slapping of NSA on Varun. She said that all are equal before law, whether one belongs to the Gandhi family or comes from the family of "rajas and maharajas."
"If Maneka Gandhi had brought up Varun right and had she inculcated good values, he would not be behind bars today," she said.
Shortly after Mayawati's press conference, Maneka was granted permission to meet Varun in jail. Slamming the Bahujan Samaj Party chief, the MP from Pilibhit said Mayawati should not consider herself at a par with Mother Teresa. "Mother did not get engineers murdered nor did she send innocent people to prison or take diamonds for her personal consumption," she said in Etah.
