Brisk polling in Uttar Pradesh

BSP will win 303 seats according to FREE ONLINE eNālandā Research & Practice UNIVERSITY & BUDDHIST GOOD NEWS LETTER Through :http://sarvajan.ambedkar.org

Mayawati confident of winning more seats

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati poses with her voter identity card and ink-marked finger after casting her vote in Lucknow. AFP Photo

A crowd of women voters in Uttar Pradesh Nearly 126 million people are registered to vote in the Uttar Pradesh state elections
UP elections: I hold master key to power, thunders Mayawati

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief called upon SC/STs along with the Sarvajan Samaj to vote for her if they wanted a Scheduled Caste to remain at the helm of affairs.

"If you vote for the Congress, all the poor and unemployed would have to go to other states to earn their livelihood."

A victory of the Samajwadi Party in the ongoing assembly elections would only usher in "goonda, badmash and mafia-run jungle raj", she warned.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), she said, would only bring back communal and feudal politics.

"The state under BSP has been free of communal tensions and people have lived in amity," she said, referring to the five years since 2007 when the BSP took power on its own.

She accused the Congress-led central government of creating hurdles in Uttar Pradesh's development.

"The high court benches in Meerut and Agra have to be cleared by the centre. Many of our financial problems are the result of centre's lack of support," Mayawati charged.

"If you want a Scheduled Caste ki beti (SC's daughter) as your chief minister again, vote for the BSP."

And she added to thunderous applause: "Today I hold the master key to power."

Mayawati said the BSP did not believe in election manifestos.

She warned that small shopkeepers and businessmen would be without work if the Congress allowed foreign direct investment in retail sector.

Chief Minister and BSP Supremo Mayawati has alleged that the Congress is responsible for backwardness of UP. She wondered how the party could change the face of the state in five years, when it had done nothing during its long rule at the Centre. Most of the time, it was the Nehru-Gandhi family which had ruled the country, she said adding, "When they could not do anything during this period, how can they develop the state in five years."

Mayawati blamed all the opposition parties for neglecting the Bundelkhand region. She said that the BSP government had demanded a package of Rs 80,000 crore from the Centre for all-round development of the region, but the latter did not sanction even a single paisa. In this package an amount of Rs 11,000 crore were for the construction of roads, development of health facilities and improving agriculture in Bundelkhand region, she added.

"Whatever the Congress leaders are saying about development of Bundelkhand region is nothing but a 'political drama'. This is a fact that Bundelkhand is a backward. It remained backward because the Congress party, which ruled the state for more than four decades, did nothing for its development and now its leaders are shedding crocodile tears over the plight of its inhabitants," she alleged. The BSP government with its meagre resources and without getting any financial assistance from the Centre tried to remove backward of Bundelkhand, she claimed.

Blaming the Congress for starting 'corruption culture' in the country, the BSP chief has alleged that the maximum black money in foreign banks was that of Congress leaders.

Chief minister Mayawati on Saturday wrote a letter to the prime minister regarding release of Centre's share under Right to Education Act.

It was pointed out in the letter that the ministry of Union HRD had approved Rs 9,408.05 crore as annual scheme for 'Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan' for 2011-12. Out of the Centre's share is about 4,969.05 crore, but only Rs 2,452.68 crore has so far been made available to the state.

Centre is giving stepmotherly treatment to the BSP government in UP. "The Centre is not making available funds to the state. The Centre's share for repair and strengthening of national highways to other states has already been released by the UPA government, but the same have not been made available to the UP government till date. Similarly, the centre has not released the amount for completing several ambitious schemes of the BSP government.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati today accused the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre of "starving the state of much needed central funds" for different development projects.

Mayawati said had the centre conceded to the state government's repeated pleas for funds, the state of UP would have been marching ahead in different fields.

Refuting the allegation of corruption against her party's government in Uttar Pradesh, the Chief Minister said, "in the last Assembly elections, a number of infiltrators had managed to sneak into our party and get elected.

"Some of them became ministers. When we detected their wrong doings we immediately removed them from their respective posts", she said.

Taking a dig at the Bhartiya Janata Party, Mayawati said, "When we removed certain corrupt elements from our party, other parties who championed the cause of honesty accepted them with open arms".

Mayawati said, "the Bhartiya Janata Party has no moral right to speak of corruption after the track record of their party's government in Karnataka has come before the country.

The track record of the NDA government which ruled in the centre for about seven years also reflects the BJP's fickle commitment to the cause of fighting corruption", she said.

Hitting out at the UPA government, the Chief Minister said, "the UPA government's numerous scandals just in the past three years should expose the true face of the Congress Party on the issue of corruption".

Referring to the reservation issue and the Congress Party's "ambivalent stand" on the matter, the Chief Minister said, "by indiscriminately adding other groups to the OBC list, the Congress Party is depriving the existing beneficiaries in the quota list".

The Chief Minister said, "By promising 9 per cent reservation to Muslims in government jobs, the Congress Party is trying to trick both the Muslims and the other OBC groups who are already in the quota ambit".

Referring to the slow pace of development in some sectors in the state, she said, "Our target is to provide 24-hour electricity per day if we are given further chance to serve the state and if the Centre cooperates with us".

She said that the Centre had been very stingy in releasing funds for the state and "whatever development has taken place in UP during the past five years has been achieved with our own meagre resources and in some cases with the help of private sector".

The Chief Minister said that the state has done more for farmers during the past five years than had ever been done by governments who claimed to champion the cause of the farmers.

She cited the example of "doubling of the minimum purchase price for sugarcane in the state" during her tenure.

The Chief Minister said that her party was determined to maintain communal peace and harmony in the state. This was reflected by the manner in which her government succeeded in maintaining peace in Uttar Pradesh in the aftermath of the declaration of the High Court case on the explosive Babri Masjid-Ram Janambhhomi Issue.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Monday attacked the Congress on the issue of corruption asking why the party was not uttering a single word on graft and price rise.

"The Congress is not uttering a word on corruption and price rise in its regime. If you all made a mistake while exercising franchise, you all have to face life of insult and hooliganism," she said while addressing an election meeting.

Attacking the Congress for defaming her government on the issue of corruption, Mayawati alleged 62 scams of Rs 20 lakh crore took place in the Congress-led government at the Centre.But a scam worth thousands of crores like 2G is different.

Congress's support was scattered, organization weak. This wouldn't help the party.Congress spoilt it by bringing in Muslim quota and going back to caste and community politics

Promising to provide 24-hour electricity, Mayawati said contrary to Oppositions' claim, BSP would get absolute majority in the state.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati today rubbished media surveys that projected BSP to be in bad position in the Assembly polls and reminded voters that her party had got majority in 2007 despite similar predictions.

"I want to tell the people that the surveys being shown on TV channels
and in the media are showing BSP winning only a few seats. They should
not be misled by these as in the 2007 polls too, BSP was not shown in surveys, yet we formed government with absolute majority," the BSP supremo said.

At an election rally here, she said, "We will prove all such claims by
the media as wrong this time as well and achieve absolute majority," he said.

"When the Election Commission ordered draping of statues of elephants in the state, the media kept showing it for 15 days thinking that we will get negative publicity. Instead, we got very good publicity free of cost," she said.

More than anything else, this has helped in the party's symbol being recognised all over the country, she said.

A BSP worker taunts media: "Have you seen such support for any leader? But you will write about Rahul Gandhi, not her."

Won't people see the contradiction between his promise of political morality and the tainted Congress-led UPA government at the centre? Won't that Rahul's team in UP isn't exactly lily white or has an edifying record?

Referring to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's remark that he had a lot of respect for Kanshi Ram, she posed, "Where did all this go when he died and the central government did not even declare a holiday. Our community will never forgive the Centre for this."

She said that in spite of "limited resources" from the Centre, her government had helped the SC/ST, backward and very backward sections to progress.

Congress is bracing for the possibility of defeat in Uttar Pradesh.

Congress and Rahul Gandhi are getting in ahead of the game to reposition the narrative since the Congress will fare considerably worse than expected.

He appeared to concede that with such a performance – that will come about – will not be enough for the Congresss to secure a large enough chunk of Assembly seats.

According to Rahul Gandhi, the electoral arithmetic of UP dictate that only when a party secures in excess of 20 percent of the popular vote will it translate into substantial representation in terms of Assembly seats.

He now argues that his effort is to revive the Congress in UP over eight to 10 years.

Congress will fare badly and it will be construed as a personal defeat for Rahul Gandhi, who has invested far more of his time and energy in this campaign than any central-level Congress leader has in any previous elections in UP. Doubts will increasingly be raised about his ability to be a “game-changer” for the party.

Just as important, a poor verdict for the Congress in UP will render the Manmohan Singh government even more of a lame duck than it is currently.

Mayawati said the Election Commission had hurt the feelings of SC/STs by ordering the covering up of elephant statues across Uttar Pradesh because the animal was the election symbol of her party.

And in a mocking tone, she thanked the media for giving the elephants and her party so much publicity for free.
Ask people why I am confident, says Mayawati

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has claimed that her government has done more for the state than the Congress, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) put together.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo has said that she is asking for votes in the assembly elections on the issue of development.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati comes out of a polling station in Lucknow on Sunday after casting her vote. Photo: Subir Roy