By IANS,
Lucknow : Praising former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kalyan Singh as a true “grassroots leader”, Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav Friday termed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati as the “most corrupt” politician in the country.
Talking to mediapersons here, Yadav charged Mayawati of squandering away the taxpayer’s money on “stone memorials”, while describing Kalyan Singh as the “only BJP grassroots leader” other than former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
“With Vajpayee indisposed, Kalyan Singh was the only BJP leader who knows the pulse of the common man,” he said. “Now that Kalyan Singh has abandoned that party, they are without a single grassroots leader.”
Defending his decision to align with the rebel BJP leader, Yadav said: “Kalyan Singh has a tremendous following among farmers and backward castes and he has promised to do everything to strengthen the Samajwadi Party and weaken the BJP.”
Asked about senior party leader Azam Khan’s criticism of the ties with Kalyan Singh, Yadav clarified: “Kalyan Singh is not joining our party. He has chosen to remain independent without forming even his own party. We are confident that his support will bring electoral dividends to the Samajwadi Party.”
Refusing to comment on Azam Khan’s oft-repeated remarks on this issue, Yadav maintained, “Anything between Azam Khan and me is an internal matter of the party.
“Perhaps people have no idea of Kalyan Singh’s strength of which I have first-hand experience as the two of us have always contested elections from neighbouring constituencies.”
Referring to Mayawati’s decisions to construct memorials to B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian constitution, and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshi Ram, Yadav said: “I am pained that a whopping sum of Rs.10,000 crore (Rs.100 billion) out of the taxpayer’s money is pumped into constructions, out of which a lot of money is pilfered.”
He also said Mayawati “rarely finds time for participating in the proceedings of the state assembly”.
“Even the current budget session was being concluded in just nine days, which was deplorable and reflects how Mayawati had reduced the fundamental democratic institution to just mockery,” he pointed out.