By IANS,
Lucknow : The Bahujan Samaj Party Sunday rubbished Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh’s charge that senior BSP leaders were collecting money for Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati.
Singh released a CD in New Delhi, containing telephone conversations of what he claimed to be BSP leaders asking party workers to collect Rs.2 million (Rs.20 lakh) for BSP chief Mayawati.
“The CD does not contain telephonic conversations of any BSP worker or leader and it has been fabricated by Singh. It is an effort to malign Mayawati’s image,” party spokesperson Swami Prasad Maurya told reporters here Sunday evening.
According to Amar Singh, the CD is the result of a sting operation by Hindi magazine Ujala and has details of how Rs.2 million was collected by senior BSP leaders Tilak Chand Ahirwal and C.P. Singh and given to Delhi-based party leader Suresh Chand.
He alleged that the money was then distributed among 39 party workers and leaders, and they were directed to make bank drafts in the name of Mayawati to be sent to her.
“(Amar) Singh is mentally ill and his right place is a mental hospital. We pity him,” Maurya said.
Every BSP worker makes small donations to run the party and gives it to Mayawati on her birthday Jan 15, which is celebrated as a ‘financial help day’, Maurya said.
“No party worker is forced to shell out money. We do not use the government machinery to run BSP like other political parties,” Maurya said.
“This tradition was started by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and we are only taking it forward,” he said.
“Earlier, the Samajwadi Party used to formulate policies for the vested interests of industrialists and took money from them. But our government makes policies for the interest of the state’s people and their progress,” Maurya said.
He also called Amar Singh a “professional broker”.
“It is evident from the cash-for-votes episode in parliament during the trust vote (July 22). The Congress had hired him for horse trading,” Maurya alleged.
“Singh is a black spot on Indian politics and he made millions of rupees by obliging industrialists when his party ruled the state,” the BSP leader said.
He said there should be a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the millions Amar Singh had donated to the Clinton Foundation.