UP Chief Minister Mayawati has hit back strongly at the comments made by Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi in Varanasi today and yesterday.
In a strong, point-by-point statement read out by the UP cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar — the top state bureaucrat — Mayawati urged Sonia Gandhi to take her concerns for loss of farmers’ land to Jaitapur and Orissa.
She pointed out that despite being ruled by Congress Party, which seems to be worried about farmers’ rights, the latter’s protests against land aquisition at the sites of Jaitapur Nuclear Plant and Posco steel plant have fallen on deaf ears. Both places are the sites of long drawn agitations by farmers against land acquisition.
“She [Sonia Gandhi] should not waste her precious time in UP,” Mayawati said in her statement.
She accused the Congress and other political parties of sending goons with guns in the guise of farmers to attack policemen and create a law and order situation.
She mocked Rahul Gandhi’s statement on mass killings and rapes in Noida, terming such politics “fallen.”
“Such allegations should not be made in general. They must be made with proof,” Shekhar, quoting Maywati, pointed out.
Adding her own twist, Mayawati pointed out that the corruption scams emanating from the central government, including CWG, 2G and Adarsh, have dented India’s reputation across the world. She also attacked the “dynastic politics” of Congress, where the Nehru family has held the top position for several years, pointing out that her BSP is one of the few parties without such a politics of succession.
She also countered Sonia Gandhi’s accusation that UP has become a backward state, devoid of industrial development, due to the state government’s wrong policies.
“It is the Congress that has been in power during most of the years after independence,” Shankar quoted her as saying.
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