Maya rally: an eye-opener to BJP and Congress

With a longing eye on the Rajasthan Assembly Election schedule later this year, the UP chief minister and the BSP supremo Kumari Mayawati in an attempt to cash in on their disenchantment with the BJP gave another blow to the Gujjar’s demand for the Scheduled Tribe status.

Addressing the gigantic dalit rally on Sunday at the Vidhyadhar Stadium in the outskirts of Jaipur, Mayawati said she was always in support of extending ST status to the Gujjar community for reservation in education and jobs.

However she maintained that the inclusion of the Gujjars into ST category would not upset the share of Meenas and other tribes, who are already in the class.

The BSP Chief while lashing out at the Vasundhara Raje’s BJP government for creating divisions between the two backward communities-Gujjars and Meenas-on the reservation row for gaining political mileage in the state, demanded both State and Central governments to brush aside their political agendas in the Gujjar issue and extend ST status to the Gujjars.

She asked the people of Rajasthan that they have seen the ruling of BJP, who did not meet its pledge made during election and appealed to give BSP this time an opportunity to implement its UP model of social engineering by bringing it to power in the forthcoming Assembly elections in the state.

"BSP aims to assume power at the Centre and for that we would popularise the UP model of Dalit-upper caste combination," she further elaborated her social engineering formula before the people.

We are looking to get the support of Brahmins and the Jats in the state, she said, “her cabinet colleagues Laxminarayan Choudhary, a Jat and Anant Mishra, a Brahmin, would assist BSP’s Rajasthan in-charge general secretary, Dharamvir Ashok during the party’s campaign in the state.”

Mayawati clarified that BSP is not a pro-dalit party only, but instead a party of economically and socially backward people.

She said that our reservation model is different from others, but an effective model for poor among the upper classes too besides for STs and SCs. She advised the Centre to keep an eye on the private player to ensure that after privatisation of Public Sector Units (PSUs), they carry on with the reservation policy for SCs and STs.

She urged the Centre to provide employment to those living below poverty line throughout the year under the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) Scheme to be extended to all districts in the country from the new financial year.

Mayawati said if her party elected to power in the next general elections, she would replace UPA government’s NREG scheme with better one that would provide employment to people below poverty line throughout the year.

"The UPA government is fooling the public with its NREGS which is implemented only in selected districts and guarantees employment to one member of a BPL family for just 100 days a year. We will introduce a scheme across the country guaranteeing employment to people below the poverty line on all 365 days,” said the UP chief minister.

The BSP rally was overwhelmed attended by above 50,000 supporters from across the state was comparatively better than the BJP sponsored Jat Rally held recently at the same venue has been an eye opener for both the BJP and the Congress in the state on the rising figure of the BSP as a next political alternative there.