By IANS,
New Delhi : Mayawati has morphed from a Dalit’s daughter to a “daulat ki beti” (daughter of wealth), Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh said here Thursday in a sharp attack on the Uttar Pradesh chief minister and accused the state government of being insensitive to the suffering of farmers.
“It was a heart-wrenching experience to see the ransacked houses and mounds of ashes when we went to Bhatta Parsaul village,” he told reporters here.
Digvijay Singh, who accompanied Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi Wednesday to Bhatta Parsaul village, which has been the centre of a bitter agitation by farmers demanding more compensation for land acquired for a highway project, said the villagers live in constant fear.
“There is fear across the faces of villagers. We have also found human bones in ashes and the body of young girl was also found in a nearby canal. This corroborates the claim of farmers that more than three people were killed,” he added.
“Dalit ki beti ab daulat ki beti baan chuki hai (The daughter of a Dalit is now running after money),” Singh said in Hindi, punning on the words “dalit” and “daulat”.
He also demanded a judicial inquiry into the “atrocities” on the farmers.
“In my political career of 40 years, I have never seen such a high magnitude of brutality perpetrated by any state on farmers the way the UP government did in Bhatta Parsaul village,” said Singh.
The senior Congress leader also alleged there was gross irregularity in the land allotment system of Uttar Pradesh.
“We are aware of the rate of illegal land allotments in Noida and Greater Noida. It is Rs.5,000 per square metre in Noida and Rs.3,000 per sq metre in Greater Noida,” Singh alleged.
He said if Mayawati is so sensitive to the issue of farmers then why does she not accept a probe into the matter.
Apart from a judicial inquiry into the incident, he also asked for compensation to the kin of the deceased farmers.
Slamming the Mayawati government, Singh urged the social activist Anna Hazare to launch a campaign against the chief minister’s Bahujan Samaj Party-led government in the state.
On Saturday, police and agitating farmers fought a pitched battle in Bhatta Parsaul village that left four dead, including two policemen.