UP Elections 2017: BSP chief Mayawati addressed a rally in Varanasi.
As the Assembly elections of the most populous state comes to a close with the sixth of the seven-phase polls taking place today, BSP chief Mayawati addressed a rally in Varanasi, which will be the key seat that will be voting in the last phase of elections on March 8. She, in her speech, hit out at the BJP and Samajwadi Party-Congress on their campaign tactics and said, "You can get the media limelight for a while with the crowds from outside, but they can't vote for you." The 61-year-old leader is confident that Uttar Pradesh has decided to give her party majority votes. PM Modi's notes ban, she said, was a move to take people's attention off the key election issues. It created a huge dent and lakhs of people lost their jobs due to the ban of the high-value currency, BSP chief added.
Here are the highlights of Mayawati's speech:
On BJP, SP- Congress campaigns - BJP and Samajwadi Party-Congress fighting for the second and the third place.
- In roadshows of both BJP and SP-Congress today in Varanasi, most of the crowd are onlookers.
- People have been called from neighbouring Bihar and Madhya Pradesh for the roadshows.
- You can get the media limelight for a while with the crowds, but they can't vote for you. The voters are here in front of me. (Mayawati hits out at BJP).
- The people of UP have made up their mind to give BSP a majority government.
- BSP is getting large amounts of votes in sixth phase.
- The BSP's government will also fulfil the dream of BR Ambedkar.
- The BJP and SP-Congress are making false claims about support in UP, shows their deceitful side.
- Don't vote for other parties, especially SP. You know the work that SP has done in UP and (PM) Modi at centre. Their wrong policy decisions has cost the states.
- The BJP can't muster the courage to name a Chief Minister candidate.
- SP is known as the government of 'jungle raj'.
- UP has to decide if it wants to vote for such a government or elect blemish-free face of the BSP.
- BJP had promised in 2014 to bring back black money and deposit 15 lakh in each person's bank account.
On PM's Constituency Varanasi - Wherever you go in Varanasi there's dirt and filth. They have not even cleaned their mother Ganga.
- Whatever promises BJP had made, the PM had made, have not been fulfilled.
- Varanasi will punish them, the mother Ganga will punish them.
- Their theatrics of kinds has been exposed.
On Notes Ban - PM's notes ban has caused a dent and people have not been able to recover from it. Lakhs have lost jobs.
- BJP, before banning the notes, they converted/managed money in UP for big industrialists. This has not been exposed in the media.
- This proves that notes ban was not only for their personal gains but also to take people's attention off key election issues.
On Backward Class Reservation - The Dalit Rohit Vemula controversy is proof that BJP will work against the backward classes.
- The reservation that backward classes have got in the constitution is not because of the Congress but BR Ambedkar.
- Dalit and Adhivasis, after they got reservation, were not included in centre's list through false means and stripped off its benefits.
- The Mandal commission's recommendations on reservation were not applied by Congress government at the centre.
- In 1989 Lok Sabha elections, when Congress lost power and I was elected to Lok Sabha, BP Singh became the PM. He said BSP should also support us. I told him my two conditions. First, BR Ambedkar be awarded the Bharat Ratan posthumously and second, adopt the Mandal commission report.
- The BJP then staged mass protests against BR Ambedkar's Bharat Ratna and against reservations for backwards classes. I don't think UP will vote for such a party.
- BJP just before the elections chose a backward class leader as its state President to get votes.
- PM Modi is not from a backward class as he claims. He is an upper caste man. He had mischievously made the Mandal Committee include his caste in Other Backward Class category when he was Gujarat Chief Minister.