Congress ‘root cause’ of Kashmir problem, says Mayawati, backs PM’s move
The BSP chief reiterated her party’s support to the central government decision to scrap Jammu and Kashmir’s special status by nullifying Article 370.
Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati was unanimously re-elected national president of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for the fourth term on Wednesday, the party’s national general secretary Satish Chandra Misra announced. Expressing gratitude to party workers, Mayawati assured them that she was ready to make every type of sacrifice to strengthen the party.
The four-time former UP chief minister vowed never to “stop or bend, let alone break” after her election in a special meeting of senior office-bearers of the BSP central executive committee at the party’s state unit office in Lucknow. She also asked party leaders to gear up for assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Delhi and told them to start preparing for by-election to 13 UP assembly seats.
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“The BSP has to fight these elections (in four states) against both the ruling BJP and the Congress and has to move forward by first becoming a balancing power,” she said. She told the party leaders to show good results in the assembly by-polls in Uttar Pradesh. She issued guidelines to the leaders to draw the strategy for the election.
The BSP chief reiterated her party’s support to the central government decision to scrap Jammu and Kashmir’s special status by nullifying Article 370. Bhimrao Ambedkar, a votary of equality, unity and integrity of the country, was not in favour of a separate provision of Article 370 for Jammu and Kashmir, she said. For this reason, the BSP supported government in Parliament to abrogate Article 370, she explained. It would take some time for the situation to return to normal and it will be better “if we wait a little”, she said.
Mayawati said the visit by leaders of the Congress and other parties to Kashmir without permission had given an opportunity to the Central government and the governor to play politics over the issue. If the situation had deteriorated after their visit, the government would have blamed these leaders, she said.
Holding the Congress and former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru responsible for the Kashmir tangle, Mayawati said had the Congress completed the work of abrogating Article 370 during the long period of its rule, the situation in Jammu and Kashmir would have been better now. The BJP would not have got an opportunity to play politics, she said.
She also accused the Congress of neglecting Bahujan Samaj consisting of Dalits and tribals. The four BSP governments in UP had worked for the Dalits, tribals, minorities and the poor among the upper castes on the principle of ‘Sarvajan Hitaye, Sarvajan Sukhaye,’ she said.
