BSP to go it alone in 2017 Punjab polls: Mayawati in Nawanshahr
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Tuesday said the party would contest the coming Punjab assembly elections alone and would have no alliance with any party.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Tuesday said the party would contest the coming Punjab assembly elections alone and would have no alliance with any party.
Addressing a rally at the new grain market here, Mayawati appealed to the party workers to be geared up for the elections as people were “ready for the change and did not want to give further chance to the Congress, SAD and BJP”.
Playing the caste factor, Mayawati claimed that Punjab had always seen a chief minister belonging to the Jat Sikh community and political parties had always ignored a leader from Dalit sections. She alleged that the Congress and SAD-BJP had always preferred people from upper castes.
The BSP president targeted Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for his visits to the house of BSP’s founder Kanshi Ram at Rupnagar and Dera Sachkhand Ballan in Jalandhar on Tuesday and called him a “baniya”, who had “always worked against Dalit and Scheduled Caste people” before he became the CM. She said the AAP convener is repeatedly visiting the state and using the weaker section to realise his political ambitions.
“A four-member panel will visit every constituency in the state to look for suitable candidates and a team of high-powered committee of the party will assist the panellists so that good candidates are fielded,” the BSP supremo said.
Mayawati said that in the past some senior leaders did not give the youth a chance to come forward, but now this would not happen as 50% posts had been given to young leaders.
In her speech that lasted more than an hour, Mayawati claimed that in the past, turncoats had cost the party dear but now, no leader would betray the party. The Rajya Sabha MP also took on the SAD-BJP government for its “failure to generate employment”.
Calling the SAD-BJP government ‘anti-Dalit’ by citing the Abohar murder case, Mayawati said only the BSP is the right choice for people. She also sought Bharat Ratna for party founder Kanshi Ram.
Speaking on the occasion, BSP state president Avtar Singh Karimpuri alleged that the state government had partially damaged the Machhiwara-Rahon bridge across the Sutlej so that people could not reach the rally venue. He alleged that the police had also stopped several buses in which party supporters were coming to the venue.
