Mayawati Takes First Step to Woo Biharis
Patna: February 6, 2008
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Mayawati in Patna
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Photo by Shashi Uttam |
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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Mayawati, during her 'Sarvjan Samaj Bhaichara' convention at Gandhi Maidan in Patna on Wednesday said her party was ready to grab power in Bihar and Delhi by using the same formula that gave her thumping victory in her own state a few months back.
"The BSP is not the party of only dalits. It believes in an all-inclusive structure comprising people from all caste, class, and religion. We are not against anyone and I urge all to join our ideas and political philosophy to strengthen the party in its attempt to replace the UPA government with a party that does not cater to only a particular group of people," the UP Chief Minister said.
Mayawati also said that it was wrong to portray her as someone who was against upper caste community. "Without the participation of people from upper caste, this country can never hope of bringing equality for all," the BSP chief said adding if she came into power at the Center, she would provide benefit of reservation to the poor people belonging to upper caste.
Taking a dig at the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Mayawati asked the audience at Gandhi Maidan to shun these two parties 'who had controlled the country for over 60 years and yet poor remained poor and rich became richer.
Making sure to not exclude the dalit Muslims and dalit Christians from the reservation gravy train, the BSP leader said that she had already written to the Center to include them in the Scheduled Caste list though the UPA government has yet to make a move in that direction.
Mayawati, in a preemptive declaration, said that in the event she gets assassinated, people should never forgive the Congress Party that has denied her SPG security to her despite repeated request by her to the Home Ministry.
Earlier Mayawati's special aircraft landed at Patna Airport from where she boarded a pre-arranged helicopter landing at the specially-built helipad at Gandhi Maidan at around 1:15 pm. The distance between the helipad to the main dais was covered in a bullet-proof vehicle followed by several security vehicles.
Security at Gandhi Maidan was extremely tight where heavily-armed commandos monitored the situation from all angles to ensure no untoward incident occurred during her entire stay in Patna.
The UP CM was greeted by party leaders including the party state chief Gandhi Azaad who presented her a bronze elephant.
Party leaders also presented Mayawati a gold elephant, a miniature model of the Ashok Pillar, a Buddha statue, and an idol of Kunwar Singh.
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