By IANS
Lucknow : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and her predecessor and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav may be arch political rivals, but now they seem to be pursuing a common goal – to woo upper castes in general and Brahmins in particular.
This was amply demonstrated at respective press conferences addressed by the two leaders here Thursday.
Launching the ambitious Dr. Ambedkar Integrated Rural Development Scheme – her own brainchild – Mayawati emphasised how she intended to insure the vital interests of those belonging to upper castes as well.
“During my past three stints as chief minister of the state, I had focused on development of villages with a dominant Dalit population only; but this new scheme being launched today aims to bring into its ambit all villages irrespective of their Dalit component,” she pointed out.
“The benefits accruing from the special development scheme to Ambedkar villages with more than 50 percent Dalit population will now reach all other villages under a five-phased programme,” she said.
According to Mayawati, “in the first phase, we plan to take up integrated development of five gram sabhas” comprising a cluster of four-five villages, spread across each of the 380 state assembly constituencies. Uttar Pradesh has a total of 403 assembly constituencies.
The chief minister went on to add that “unlike the past, when Dalit dominated villages were given precedence over others, we will now have a whole lot of other villages too so that members of upper castes also derive the same benefits in times to come.”
Within an hour of Mayawati’s press meet, her bete noire Mulayam Singh Yadav went hammer and tongs on how he was all set to dent Mayawati’s increasing influence over the upper castes.
Armed with a self-styled Brahmin leader Kripa Shankar Misra from Ayodhya, where he claimed to be heading a Sanatan Samaj Party, Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh sought to virtually wage a war on Mayawati’s emerging Brahmin base.
“We are joining hands with the Samajwadi Party to fight against the exploitation of Brahmins by Mayawati, who has been misleading them,” Misra told reporters in an emotionally charged speech that lasted 15-20 minutes.
Claiming “huge support” of Brahmins, Misra said: “I will mobilise my cadres to spread out all across the state to apprise common Brahmins of specific cases of persecution of members of the community at the hands of Dalits under the Mayawati regime.”
He added: “We propose to hold a conference of our 70 district units in Lucknow on Sep 20 when we will chalk out a long-term strategy to expose the myth created by Mayawati and her Brahmin leaders about building Dalit-Brahmin harmony.”
Asked about the background of Misra, who was lesser known even in Ayodhya where he claimed to be having his headquarters, Amar Singh promptly intervened to point out, “who knew Satish Misra when he joined Mayawati?”
Sure enough, he was all out to convey that the Samajwadi Party was not prepared to leave any stone unturned to match Mayawati’s much publicised “social engineering” that had really rich political paid dividends to her.