Mayawati lashes out at Congress, claims grand-old-party can't find candidates for UP polls

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Friday said that Congress' voter base had reduced to such an extent that the party was unable to find candidates to contest the 2022 UP Assembly elections. While addressing a press conference, Mayawati said that the present condition of the Congress party across the country was "very bad". Mocking the party's culture, the BSP chief said that Congress brought in people to rallies by paying them daily wages. 

Mayawati attacks Congress

Asserting that BSP is the only political party in the country that did not receive funding from big capitalists unlike Congress and other parties, she claimed that Congress sends them to the Rajya Sabha by taking money.

Mayawati said, "Like Congress, BSP does not give tickets to the people by giving money. Rather, it gives most of the tickets to those who bear the cost of contesting the election by themselves."

Referring to the booklet released by the Congress ahead of the state Assembly polls, she said, "Congress should first fix its own house. They have run propaganda against BSP in the booklet. No matter how many booklets they issue, four, the people will not buy their lies. In Punjab, the BSP-Akali Dal alliance will oust Congress. Congress has criticised the policies of BJP, SP and BSP in the booklet as the state assembly elections are due next year".

BSP's Brahmin outreach in the run-up to UP elections

In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, BJP won a whopping 312 seats in the 403-member House, whereas BSP could win only 19 seats. On the other hand, the SP-Congress alliance failed to bear fruit as it could win in only 54 constituencies. The Mayawati-led party is eyeing a comeback in the state in the upcoming Assembly election after being out of power for 9 years now. 

The BSP supremo has maintained that Brahmins are very unhappy with the Yogi Adityanath-led government despite overwhelmingly voting for BJP in the previous Assembly election. On July 23, BSP General Secretary Satish Chandra Mishra offered prayers at the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya and commenced the party's first phase of the campaign to woo Brahmin voters.  Stressing that the real power will come only when Brahmins and Dalits in UP come together, he said, "Brahmin community constitute 13 per cent of the state population but are still marginalised because Brahmins are not united".

Notably, Mayawati's social engineering had propelled BSP to power in 2007 with the party winning 206 out of 403 seats in the state Assembly. For instance, she allocated nearly 139 seats to the upper caste candidates out of 86 were Brahmins. It is believed that SC Mishra played a key role in bringing Brahmins close to the party as he organized a series of rallies projecting BSP's poll symbol 'elephant' as Lord Ganesh. 

(Image: ANI, PTI)