Demonetisation: 90 per cent of Indians fakir due to PM, says Mayawati

Lucknow: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati, on Tuesday, accused the Modi government of turning 90 per cent of the country’s population into a ‘fakir’.

In an obvious reference to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent statement that he remained a ‘fakir’, Ms Mayawati said that it was the people of the country — and not the Prime Minister — who had been rendered cashless due to demonetisation decision.

She asked the people to “repay Prime Minister Narendra Modi with interest for causing them such misery and harassment” by plummeting the BJP to the fourth position in the forthcoming UP elections.

Ms Mayawati also demanded reservation on economic basis and said that the poor in the upper castes also deserved a better deal.

Speaking at a function to offer tributes to Dr B.R. Ambedkar on his 61st death anniversary, Ms Mayawati said that Modi government has done maximum work for the private sector where the principle of reservation did not apply.

Pointing at the ‘anti-dalit mentality’ of the BJP, she said that the BJP was silent on the issue of reservation in promotion and reservation in the private sector. She also cited incidents related to the suicide of Rohith Vemula, the atrocities on Dalits in Una and the Daya Shankar episode in Uttar Pradesh to underline the fact that the BJP was against Dalits.

Ms Mayawati further said that ‘some political parties’ always played games with OBCs without doing anything for the class.

“OBCs were always misguided that Ambedkar only favoured scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and ignored backward castes which is not true.  The BSP is always concerned about the welfare of OBCs and anyone who tries to create a divide between the various sections of oppressed classes is obviously working against their interest”, she pointed out. She said that the rise of leaders of the Samajwadi Party was due to Ambedkar.

Ms Mayawati mounted a scathing attack on the ruling Samajwadi party and said that if the BSP came to power, she would order an inquiry into instances of land grabbing by SP leaders and lodge FIRs against them.

She said that she would also order a probe into financial decisions taken by the Akhilesh government.

The BSP leader slammed the statement of UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav in which he had said that BSP’s elephant statues had not moved an inch in the past years and said, “I want to know if the statues of SP leaders are moving around. In any case, I want to thank them for publicizing our party symbol”.