Mayawati’s proposal to divide Uttar Pradesh into four States goes
far beyond disturbing the State’s politics ahead of the elections.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Tuesday announced massive bonanza for several cities, especially drought-hit Bundelkhand.

Laying down foundation stones for 160 projects worth Rs 1400 crore on the death anniversary of Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Mayawati also blown poll bugle for the 2012 assembly elections.

Mayawati announced electricity project of 375.22 crore while gave 276 crore for Bundelkhand region. The uttar Pradesh government also allotted Rs 42 crore for Jhansi, Rs 14 crore for Mahoba and Rs 17.9 crore for Chitrakoot.

Speaking on the occasion, she thanked people for supporting her BSP government. She said that her government has been working on the principal of ‘Sarva Jan Hitaya and Sarva Jan Sukhai’.

Mayawati said that Baba Saheb’s hard struggle for the SC/ST communities played major role in her good governance and helped her to uplift the backwards.

“We have reached at this position after hard struggle and will not leave this position despite of all political conspiracies pull down BSP government. My party always emerged strongly after crisis. I believe that once again Opposition will taste dust in the assembly elections.”

She urged people to vote BSP in the forthcoming assembly election to fulfill the dreams of Baba Saheb.

Attacking opposition political parties, Mayawti said that previous governments  utterly failed to uplift the SC/STs.

“Don’t get hoodwink by the false promise of such opportunistic political parties. SC/STs didn’t get their rights during the last governments.”

Mayawati looks to repeat ‘07 formula

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati will hold a grand rally of Muslims, Thakurs and Vaishyas on December 18 in Lucknow as part of her campaign to replicate her sarvjan (all communities) formula of 2007.

The BSP has already held two such rallies: a Brahmin rally, and a SC/ST-OBCs rally. The
pre-poll return to this formula comes after a perception that she had
returned to her core SC/ST base and sidelined the sarvjan idea.

Bhaichara Samitis — vehicles of SC/ST outreach to other castes — are also back in action. “Bhaichara samitis have been activated once again in the last 1-1.5 years. SC/STs too are solidly behind her, and this means that BSP’s candidates are likely to be most winnable.”

Mayawati’s core SC/ST vote is 21% of UP’s population. It is this huge base that makes the BSP’s Brahmin (9%), Thakur (7.9%), Muslim (18%) and OBC candidates tend to gain: some in their own castes see them as more winnable than candidates from other parties, leading to a vote split in favour of the BSP.

Mayawati’s strategy is  harping on graft charges against the central government and BJP governments in
Karnataka and Uttarakhand. She has also got a resolution for splitting UP passed to divert the debate.

BSP sources insist the construction of statues in the memory of SC/ST/OBC icons will work in her favour. She will also showcase her populist schemes like the Kanshi Ram Shehri Awas Yojana (giving two lakh houses
to BPL families, half of them SC/STs); a scheme to give Rs 25,000 plus bicycles for girls of BPL families who have passed school; and development work in Ambedkar (high SC/ST population) villages. She can also showcase her ‘strong’ action against BSP politicians accused of crime and graft as an improvement over the SP regime’s perceived ‘criminal-friendliness’.

SC/STs must conquer Delhi, says Maya

LUCKNOW: UP chief minister and BSP chief Mayawati on Tuesday launched 160 development projects worth
Rs 1,500 crore on the occasion of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar’s Mahaparinibban (death anniversary) diwas. While invoking Ambedkar, she reminded SC/STs that their ultimate aim is to form government at the Centre.
 

Mayawati said “Babasaheb
struggled to provide SC/STs rights in the Constitution to bring them at par with other sections of society and now we have to take his mission to all the corners of the country”. For which, she added, SC/STs will have to keep in mind that they not only have to ensure BSP’s victory in UP but also have to capture power in Delhi.

The projects announced by Mayawati included several related to drinking water and electricity supply worth Rs 267 for the Bundelkhand region comprising seven districts. While Rs 179 crore has been marked for Chitrakoot, Jhansi has been given Rs 42 crore and Mahoba Rs 14 crore. The projects will provide benefit to the people in the other four districts as well. Rest of the development projects worth Rs
1,233 crore are for other parts of the state.

Mayawati made announcements after paying tribute to Ambedkar. While addressing lakhs of party workers assembled at Smajik Prerna Sthal,a memorial built for SC/ST/OBC icons in Lucknow, Maya lashed out at
Opposition parties for targeting her party leaders through media and exhorted her supporters to give a befitting reply to rivals by ensuring the victory of BSP in the coming assembly polls.

Mayawati said Opposition parties were constantly attacking her party and its leaders on petty issues because they have no other issues to talk about.

“With only some time left for the assembly polls, Opposition have lost their sleep,” she said. Describing rival parties as anti-SC/ST/OBC/Minorities/poor among Upper Castes, she said that none of them gave due honour to SC/ST/OBC saints and leaders and created hurdles in construction of SC/ST.OBC memorials in UP by her
government.

The chief minister said that only BSP is taking forward the work started by Babasaheb to uplift and empower SC/ST/OBC/Minorities/Poor amon Upper Castes and marginalised sections of the society. However, she added, despite working relentlessly for the cause for last two decades, still a lot has to be done for the masses suppressed since ages. She claimed that her government has been working for poor in all castes and communities,
particularly SC/STs, back.

 

Thus spoke Ambedkar

VOICE OF SARVAJAN

“THE elephant has set a political cat among
the pigeons.” Lucknow-based political analyst Sudhir Panwar thus succinctly
summed up the immediate effect of Chief Minister Mayawati’s announcement of the
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government’s proposal to divide Uttar Pradesh into
four smaller States. “Everybody knows that the processes for the formation of
the proposed new States – Paschim Pradesh, Bundelkhand, Poorvanchal and Awadh
Pradesh – cannot even be initiated properly before the State Assembly elections,
which are due early next year. But, undoubtedly, this has added a new, if
contentious, dimension to the election run-up as a whole and particularly to
the early electioneering launched by the major players – the principal
opposition Samajwadi Party [S.P.], the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP], the
Congress, and the Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal [RLD] – in State politics.
How exactly this will ultimately impact the electoral trend cannot be gauged at
this point. But there is no doubt that this too will come up time and again on
the poll scene,” Panwar said.

Early reactions from political forces in Uttar
Pradesh and other parts of the country as well as ground reactions in the State
indicate that through the November 16 announcement the BSP Chief Minister has,
in one stroke, delivered several political blows.

The announcement has also put three important
political players – the Congress, the BJP and the RLD – on the defensive, at
least in one aspect of the political campaign. None of the three parties can
overtly oppose the announcement, on account of a variety of factors.

They find themselves incapable of discussing
the merits or demerits of the proposal

The RLD has been for long demanding a separate
Harit Pradesh, comprising the western districts of U.P. The contours of Paschim
Pradesh correspond to the RLD’s Harit Pradesh. The BJP is for smaller States in
principle and has been supporting the movement for the creation of Telangana by
bifurcating Andhra Pradesh. Sections of the Congress in at least three of the
four proposed new States – Bundelkhand, Poorvanchal and Paschim Pradesh – have
periodically articulated their support to the idea of dividing U.P. The
Congress’ national leadership, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has
repeatedly pointed to the possibility of a second States Reorganisation
Commission (SRC) to consider the demands for smaller States on the basis of
developmental concerns, ethnicity and regional aspirations.

Naturally, the leaderships of all the three
parties have been vague in their reactions to Mayawati’s proposal.

At the level of national politics too, the
proposal is bound to cause great discomfort to the Congress and the United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) government led by it at the Centre. The government
is already grappling with the Telangana agitation, which has not only generated
turbulence from time to time but also led to dissensions within the party’s
Andhra Pradesh unit. The Congress has sought a number of “middle ground”
options to deal with the situation without much success. The political climate
created by Mayawati’s announcement is bound to accentuate the emotive element
in the Telangana movement. This will naturally add to the woes of the Congress
governments in Andhra Pradesh and at the Centre.

 

There are also indications that Mayawati’s
proposal has acted as a spur to other long-standing demands for statehood.
These include the demands for Vidarbha, Gorkhaland and Bodoland. The National
Federation for New States (NFNS) has already regrouped in the context of the announcement.
Niroop Reddy, convener of the NFNS, told Frontline that the organisation was
planning to meet in Delhi in early December to concretise a new action plan for
launching a broad agitation in different parts of the country. Interestingly,
the NFNS has representatives of another demand for statehood from Uttar
Pradesh, namely Brij Pradesh. The demand visualises the creation of Brij
Pradesh comprising certain parts of western and central Uttar Pradesh. Niroop
Reddy says that if Mayawati decides to support the demand for Telangana and
Vidarbha, she will gain greater acceptance in the southern and western parts of
India. “Vidarbha is Ambedkar’s home State and Telangana has only 10 per cent
upper caste population,” he says.

Indications from the higher echelons of the
BSP are that the party is looking at suggestions such as these seriously in
order to renew and strengthen its effort to gain greater prominence in national
politics. “Through the proposal for four new States, Behenji has made it clear
that the BSP is not a one-person party. By any standards, the BSP is a very
powerful force in the regions of Poorvanchal and Bundelkhand, and if these
attain statehood, we will have Chief Ministers from different sections of the
organisational hierarchy. In many ways, the announcement also signifies a
concrete move to decentralise the organisation as well as empower more party
leaders. Undoubtedly, this is the path for greater national prominence,” a
senior BSP Member of Parliament told Frontline on condition of anonymity, as is
the wont among second-level leaders in the party.

A number of political analysts, including the
academic Sudha Pai of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), who has carried out
fundamental research on the reorganisation of States, are of the view that the
cumulative impact of all these developments will ultimately make the Centre
consider the formation of a second SRC. “Such an entity could look at the
multitude of issues and aspirations behind different demands and come up with
concrete and objective parameters for reorganisation. There is no need to see
this as promotion of fissiparous tendencies but has to be perceived as part of
a continuing process of democratisation that will address the concerns of
social groups and regions hitherto excluded from the mainstream of governance,”
Sudha Pai said.

The views expressed by analysts like Sudha Pai
do find reverberations in the Congress. A number of leaders admit that the
Union government will be forced to grapple with the cumulative effect of the
statehood demands. In fact, a number of them even advocate the setting up of a
second SRC before the U.P. elections. This, said a senior Minister from south
India, would help the party in two ways. “One, [it will] minimise the political
damage caused by Mayawati’s announcement as it will show that the Congress too
is serious in pursuing the agenda, and two, give the party and the government
some biding time on issues such as Telangana on account of the processes
involved in the setting up of the second SRC and getting it into motion.” As
things stand, all these ideas are at the debating stage only, although there is
the realisation that “something needs to be done” at the earliest in order to
put up a good show in U.P. and also to stave off the problems that are bound to
emerge from other parts of the country.

In terms of caste equations, the 2007
elections signified desertion by a section of the Other Backward Classes (OBC)
votes from the party, including votes from its most prominent support base, the
Yadav community.

While travelling in parts of western, central
and eastern districts of the State over the past month is that this combination
will be as effective as it was in 2007.

The upper castes, has stayed back in BSP since
the 2007 Assembly and 2009 Lok Sabha elections, as they feel secure with the
highly performing best and meritorious governence of Ms Mayawati. MLAs and
Ministers belonging upper castes are cofident of 300 seats in the coming
elections.

The corruption charges faced by the Union
government and the anti-Congress thrust of the anti-corruption movement are not
doing them any good.

The BSP, on its part, is trying hard to
advance the SC/ST-Brahmin Bhaichara (SC/ST-Brahmin brotherhood) political
equation it had promoted in 2007.

Its Chamar base is intact. The leadership is
apparently hopeful that this, along with the addition of a section of Muslim
and upper caste votes, will help the BSP emerge once again as the
single-largest party. The BSP also hopes to get some support from the groups
that have campaigned for the division of Uttar Pradesh.

Mayawati’s proposal
for new States was apparently based on a consideration of the impact of small
groups in a localised situation

 

“We believe that no matter who
your are  or where you come from. every person can fulfill their
god-given potential, just as an Scheduled Caste( Untouchable) like
Dr.Ambedkar could lift himself up and pen the words of the Constitution
that protect the rights of all Indians.”Obama’s speech text. sent by
Gopinath BSP Karnataka

President Barack Obama Meets With the Dalai Lama, February 2010.

These
three things, monks, are conducted in secret, not openly. What three?
Affairs with women, the mantras of the brahmins, and wrong view.

“But
these three things monks, shine openly, not in secret. what three? The
moon, the sun and the Dhamma and Decipline proclaimed by the Tathagata.”

 

 

 

 

 

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