Lucknow, Feb 13 (IANS) Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav Wednesday launched a major offensive against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and termed her government as a “complete failure” on all fronts.
Initiating a debate on this year’s annual budget, presented before the assembly Tuesday, Mulayam, who is leader of the opposition in the house, alleged rampant large-scale corruption in the government.
“Crores (of rupees) were being pilfered out of government schemes and tonnes of money was being taken as bribes by your officials, besides funds being collected in the name of your birthday,” the former chief minister said addressing Mayawati.
“I would not know how much of that money was reaching you,” he quipped.
Referring to Mayawati’s dream project – the Ganga Expressway – he said: “The project is only aimed at minting money. It would do no good to the state but would benefit a particular business house who would in turn pass off a huge underhand cut to people in the government.”
Mulayam also made a scathing attack on Mayawati’s top bureaucrat, Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh. He went to the extent of accusing Singh of harbouring kidney racket kingpin Amit Kumar.
“Singh knew about the racket but provided shelter to him,” Mulayam alleged without coming out with any concrete evidence against the bureaucrat.
Flaying Mayawati for summarily terminating the services of 18,000 policemen recruited during his tenure in office, Mulayam declared, “I will restore the services of these poor people once I return to power.”
He termed the dismissals as “unconstitutional”.
With an eye on his minority vote bank, Mulayam accused the Mayawati government of targeting Muslim youth. “It is a pity that the present government is not only busy labelling Muslim youth as terrorists but had also got many of them eliminated,” he said.
Undermining Mayawati’s claim about making “handsome financial allocations” and drawing up “major economic schemes” for the poverty-ridden Bundelkhand region, the Samajwadi Party chief said, “people are dying of hunger in Bundelkhand.”
Mayawati, who sat through Mulayam’s two-hour speech, interjected only once, when she launched a counter-attack for the “official neglect” of the Ambedkar Park and Memorial. She will reply to the debate on the budget Friday.