Mayawati fields 97 Muslims to derail SP

Lucknow: Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati unveiled poll strategy on Tuesday by announcing that the BSP would give tickets to 97 Muslims and 87 dalits.

The increased representation to Muslims is apparently an attempt to woo the minorities in a big way, taking advantage of the ongoing bickering in the ruling Samajwadi Party in UP. “Muslims should not waste their vote by going with the SP, which is facing a split and is working in coordination with the BJP,” she said at a press conference.

In 2007, the BSP had given 61 tickets to Muslims and 89 to dalits and 139 to upper castes. In 2012, it gave 85 tickets to Muslims and 88 to dalits and 117 to upper castes, including 74 brahmins, and 113 to OBCs.

Ms Mayawati said that under her regime, Muslims were given adequate protection while “they faced riots in the Samajwadi regime”.

Ms Mayawati announced that she had finalised 87 tickets for dalits, which include 85 reserved seats. She said the BJP is trying to mislead dalits with “cosmetic” decisions like launching of Bhim app named after Dr Ambedkar and promising to make memorials of dalit icons.

“But incidents like Daya Shankar Singh using derogatory language against me, the suicide of Rohith Vemula and the Una incidents have not been forgotten, and dalits know that their welfare is protected only in the BSP regime,” she said. To woo the OBCs, the BSP chief has also kept aside 106 tickets for OBCs, though she did not give the breakup of the OBC communities being given tickets.

She has kept 113 tickets for upper castes. The representation to brahmins, however, has gone down and the BSP this time gave only 66 tickets to the community. Sources confirm the BSP would give 36 tickets to Thakurs and 11 to Kayasthas, Vaishyas and other upper caste communi