By Kulsum Mustafa,
Lucknow: If the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Ms Mayawati is to be believed, it is the Muslims and media who together worked and toppled her apple cart and led to the party’s humiliating defeat at the hustling in the recent Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. Mayawati said this while addressing the media at a crowded press conference at the sprawling party office on Mall Avenue, immediately after submitting her resignation as chief minister to the state Governor, B L Joshi, at Raj Bhawan, on Wednesday afternoon. Later in the day Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and the youth face of the party and main campaigner in the elections Akhilesh Yadav also called upon the Governor and staked their claim to form the government.
While Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP) registered a historic victory in the elections by securing 224 in the 403-seat assembly, BSP just managed to gather 80 seats, BJP reached the third slot by getting 47 and Congress came fourth with just 27 seats in its kitty.
With a fake smile plastered on her face and her body language already sans the self confidence that she had oozed as chief minister, Mayawati read out the type written press release in her traditional style. She said that yesterday the election results for the 16th Vidhan Sabha were declared and as the mandate was against her party she has resigned.
Mayawati did not mince words while stating that it was Congress political gimmick of declaring 4.5 per cent quota for the Muslims from the existing 27 pc OBC quota that actually triggered chain reactions. While the BJP immediately stood up against this move the Muslims felt that this can lead to a stronger BJP as the Hindu vote would get polarized on the issue towards BJP. This created a panic situation and pushed the Muslims towards SP, which they saw as the only strong alternative against BJP in view of Congress not being strong enough to offer them a shield of protections.
“Muslims voted en mass for SP, their vote was not divided this time,” said Mayawati, offering her defense for her party’s humiliating defeat from 206 seats in the 2007 assembly elections.
But she asserted that her Dalit vote remained intact and that is how the party managed to get the 80 seats. Mayawati said that that in these assembly elections it was the upper caste vote that got divided like the Muslim vote used to in the past elections. And that is how Mayawati’s much hyped social engineering theory of bringing Brahmin, Muslims and Dalits coming together on one platform was shattered totally in these elections.
Mayawati blamed the Muslims for shunning her at a time when she needed them most and when she had done so much for them.
But when the prepared text was read out it was time to turn her guns on the media. She lambasted the media for creating an anti BSP and pro Mulayam environment which led to SP victory.
Prophesizing that the coming years will be bane for Uttar Pradesh Mayawati said that while the people of the state will curse the Congress, BJP for aiding SP come to power they will also not forget to pin down the media for the role it played in bringing the goonda raj of SP back.
She said that she had inherited a difficult regime in 2007 but during the next five years she did “important” “historic” work for every section of society. Unfortunately the masses have now given their mandate in the hands of a party which is likely to put all her ambitious schemes for UP’s development in cold storage and will take the state backwards.