Congress, BSP set to part ways on January 15,Indian Politics, News Analysis, India News Online

The bonhomie between Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati is set to come to an end on January 15 when Mayawati’s deadline to the Centre to provide tens of thousands of crores to Uttar Pradesh for its development and also for upgradation of her security to SPG level expires. The honeymoon between the two parties is already over but the alliance may finally end with Mayawati announcing withdrawal of support to the UPA at or soon after her birthday bash in Lucknow on January 15.

Observers say that Mayawati has been steadily adopting anti-Congress postures over the last few weeks. The Congress on its part is also none too happy with the BSP for cutting into its vote bank, which became apparent during last month’s Assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

Taking a significance step towards formally snapping ties with the UPA government, Mayawati on January 9 pushed through an anti-Congress resolution at her party’s conference in Lucknow holding the Congress responsible for ignoring her demand for Special Protection Group (SPG) cover.

“The party has given me a free hand to take a decision in the matter. I am convening a meeting of BSP MPs, MLAs and party functionaries in Delhi after January 15 where a final decision on the matter would be taken”, said Mayawati.

This further mounting of pressure on the Congress comes a day after she openly demanded SPG cover in Noida and two days after she charged the Congress with conspiring to physically eliminate her.

At a meeting of the party’s MPs and MLAs in Lucknow, Mayawa¬ti briefed them on what she described as “increased threat per¬ception to her following the increase in the party’s popularity and mass base across the country.”

According to a senior party member present at the meeting she had quoted Intelligence sources reporting this threat for which she now wanted SPG cover currently available to PM, ex-PMs and their families.

Defending the state police, she maintained that it was capable of protecting her but she pointed out that she happened to be the national president of the BSP, a national party, re¬quiring extensive travelling across the country. “As such my security outside UP becomes the responsibility of the central government”.

Wondering what was stopping the central government from bringing in another amendment allowing her SPG cover, Mayawati recalled that the Act had been amended once due to a special circumstance demanding protection to an ex-PM’s family.

“Why can it not be amended again to protect a person under special circumstances”? she questioned.

Earlier on Jan. 7, Mayawati charged certain Congress leaders with hatching a conspiracy to eliminate her and threatened to withdraw support to the UPA any time after Jan. 15.

Mayawati said Central and State intelligence agencies were in the know of the “political and social reasons” behind the con¬spiracy to eliminate her. Following a heightened threat percep¬tion, the State government wrote to the Centre requesting Special Protection Group security for her but there was no response.

“The Congress will be responsible if anything happens to me,” the Chief Minister said.

Hitting out at the Congress and the UPA coalition, particu¬larly in the wake of the criticism by some Congress leaders that her government failed to foil the January 1 terrorist attack on the Rampur CRPF camp, Mayawati said there was no use indulging in a blame game. “All parties should rise above narrow politi¬cal considerations and launch coordinated efforts to secure our borders and root out the menace of terrorism from the country.”

She said: “Terror strikes have taken place in Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra as well. When the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government was at the Centre, we witnessed the Parlia¬ment House coming under terrorist attack. You have to rise above political considerations to tackle terrorism which is going on not for just one or two years. Terrorists are infiltrating from across the border, they do not need valid visas and passports to come here.”

Mayawati accused the UPA government of following the BJP-led NDA regime’s ways of “harassing her and trying to get her in¬volved in fake cases.” She said it was not allowing the Central Bureau of Investigation to finalise its report on the dispropor¬tionate assets case against her and was deliberately employing “delaying tactics.” The CBI was “harassing” persons who had given her “gifts” although the Income Tax Department settled the mat¬ter.

Also she alleged, the Centre was turning a deaf ear to her demand for a special financial package of Rs. 80,000 crore for the development of the backward regions of eastern U.P. and Bundelkhand.

Congress unfazed

The Congress, reacting to Mayawati’s charges, said that it was the prerogative of the Bahujan Samajwadi Party chief to withdraw support to the UPA.

The party dismissed Mayawati’s charge that it was conspiring to get her eliminated as “completely baseless and absolutely unacceptable”.

“She is free to take a stand which she thinks is appro¬priate,” said Digvijay Singh, AICC general secretary in charge of UP. This was echoed also by spokesperson Jayanti Natrajan as the ongoing war of words between the two parties got worse with her attack on the Congress. The Congress sought to play down the issue and stressed that if she feared a threat to her life “her security should certainly be appropriately upgraded.”

Digvijay Singh expressed “surprise” that Mayawati did not think the UP police was capable of handling her security. “What is she afraid of? She has the NSG cover which is one step lower than the SPG,” he said.

Rejecting the contention that the Congress was out to get her because of its defeats in Gujarat and Himachal where the BSP had played the spoiler, Singh said: “We are only playing the role of a constructive opposition in UP by raising people’s issues.”

Battle over Bundelkhand

With Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi planning to hold a rally in Jhansi on Jan. 17, a blame-game has started between the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party on who is to blame for the Bundelkhand region’s backwardness. The Congress has sought a Prime Minister’s rehabilitation package on the lines of the Vidarbha package for the region that is reeling under drought and has reportedly seen over 200 suicides by farmers in the last seven months. Congress leaders from Uttar Pradesh met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Jan. 11 to demand a separate Bundelkhand state.

On the other hand, Mayawati has been blaming the Central Government for the plight of the people of Bundelkhand by not releasing the special packages asked by her.

The State Information Department has launched a propaganda campaign against the Centre for neglecting UP by not releasing these packages. On December 29, Mayawati ordered Chief Secre¬tary Prashant Kumar Mishra to visit Bundelkhand to review the relief work every 10-days.

The Chief Secretary on Jan. 7 demanded proposals from all major government departments for relief schemes within three days and gave a deadline for launching all such schemes by Jan. 15, two days before Rahul’s visit to Jhansi.

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Mayawati’s birthday bash

Two press conferences, laying the foundation stone of an expressway to cost Rs. 25,000 crore, threat of withdrawing sup¬port to the UPA are expected to be the highlights of Uttar Pra¬desh Chief Minister Mayawati’s birthday on Jan. 15. The Chief Minister, who turns 52 on that day, will cut a 52 kilogram cake in Lucknow before addressing the media and then flying to Ballia to lay the foundation stone of the 950 km. expressway along the Ganga. She will then ride in her helicopter to Greater Noida to lay a second foundation stone at the other end of the expressway.

The expressway is yet to be approved by the Centre and the Ministry of Surface Transport is still studying its viability.

Mayawati’s followers in all 403 Assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will cut separate cakes to celebrate her birthday.

But, observers say, the highlight may be Mayawati’s press conference later in the evening in New Delhi, where she could announce the BSP’s withdrawal of support to the UPA Government.

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Student killed in police firing

A student was killed in police firing and six persons were injured as members of the Samajwadi Party’s students wing clashed with the police in different parts of Uttar Pradesh on Jan. 9.

The students were protesting against the police lathicharge on the Chhatra Sabha members at a college function in Lucknow on Tuesday. They were demanding the restoration of student union elections in the state.

Mukesh Kumar Yadav was killed in the police firing at the Chaudhary Charan Singh Post Graduate Degree College at Haibra in Saifai, native village of the Leader of the Opposition in the Vidhan Sabha and former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh in Etawah district.

In the state capital, senior SP leaders Shivpal Singh Yadav (Mulayam’s brother), Akhilesh Yadav ( Mulayam’s son) and Ahmed Hasan were among those arrested on Wednesday after they sat on dharna near the Loreto Convent.

Police intercepted them as they marched towards the Assem¬bly.

Reports of protests were received from Mainpuri, Mau, Bare¬illy, Etawah and Allahabad where SP activists sat on the rail tracks.

Chief Minister Mayawati has deputed the Commissioner of the Kanpur Division to conduct an inquiry into the Saifai incident.

Mayawati told journalists that the violence was “orchestrated.” She said that in Saifai the police fired in self-defence after a mob resorted to heavy brickbatting. The SP’s “attempts at spreading” mayhem would not be tolerated and strict action would be taken against the guilty, she said and warned Mulayam Singh that he too would not be spared if he took the law into his own hands.

Mulayam Singh, however, accused Mayawati of political vendetta. He alleged that the police firing on the SP students was done at her behest.

Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh, on Jan. 10 accused Mayawati of “conspiring to get Mulayam Singh Yadav elimi¬nated.” Addressing a news conference in Lucknow, he said: “Along with Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati had designs to get his younger brother Shivpal Yadav and me too bumped off.”

“Earlier, a conspiracy was being hatched to nail Mulayam and me under the Prevention of Terrorism Act,” the SP leader said. “It was Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Lalji Tandon who told me about Mayawati’s plan to plant a booklet in the pocket of a slain terrorist with our phone numbers, so that cops could accuse me and Mulayam Singh of nexus with terrorists.”

Amar Singh said: “Let me make it loud and clear that if anything happens to me or any member of Mulayam’s family, Mayawati should be held squarely responsible for it.”

Mayawati’s claim of security threat ‘bogus’ : BJP

Senior BJP leader and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh has ridiculed Mayawati’s claim that there was a threat to her life. Speaking in Allahabad on Jan. 9, he said the BSP government in the state and the UPA regime at the Centre are indulging in a blame-game over the issue of security.

“What would be the fate of the people of a State where the Chief Minister herself says that there is a terrorist threat to her life. This exposes the BSP’s bogus claims of ensuring the rule of law in UP,” BJP vice-president Kalyan Singh told report¬ers.

He charged both the Centre and the UP Government of playing a blame game over the recent spurt in terrorist activities in the state, for which “both are equally responsible”. “The Centre has failed to check cross-border terrorism as it is too busy with its politics of Muslim appeasement,” he said.

The BJP leader criticised the State Government for Tuesday’s lathicharge on Samajwadi Party workers and Wednesday’s police firing in Etawah which claimed one life saying “it is not en¬forcement of law and order but political vendetta”.

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