'Mayawati trying to woo upper caste vote bank'

Lucknow, Oct 20 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Monday said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati was pointlessly trying to woo the upper caste vote bank with her pseudo sympathy.

'She (Mayawati) is only fooling the upper castes of the state, and once the elections are over she will backtrack,' state BJP president Ramapati Ram Tripathi said.

'If she admits that 80 percent of the upper caste residents of Uttar Pradesh are poor, why were their names removed from the list of beneficiaries of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families entitled to special concessions in the public distribution scheme,' questioned Tripathi.

He was referring to the recent government decision to remove hundreds of names from the BPL list.

'The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is and has always remained anti upper caste and Hindutva,' Tripathi said.

The BJP demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the alleged relations of the Congress, Samajwadi Party and BSP leaders with members and office-bearers of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

'Besides having a soft corner for them, politicians like Mulayam Singh, Amar Singh, Akbar Ahmed Dumpy and Ram Naresh Yadav, have always advocated removal of the ban on SIMI. The CBI should probe their relations with SIMI,' Tripathi said.