BJP neglecting common people for RSS agenda, says BSP chief Mayawati

BSP supremo Mayawati on Thursday charged the BJP-led central government with 'implementing the Hindutva agenda of the RSS' and 'neglecting the common people and minority communities'.

"... the central government is not working in the interest of the common people but is implementing the hindutva agenda of its main organisation RSS and is also benefitting the capitalists... dalits, backwards and religious minorities are being neglected", Mayawati told newspersons.

In an oblique reference to PM Narendra Modi having 'khichdi-dahi-chura' at Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan's house on Makar Sankranti on Wednesday, Mayawati said Modi is following in the footsteps of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi but that would not influence the Dalits.

"Like the Congress yuvraj, Prime Minister Modi is visiting the dalits and having 'khichdi-chura'... but Dalits would not be influenced by all this", the Bahujan Samaj Party president said. Mayawati, who is celebrating her 59th birthday today, also downplayed BJP's charges that the her party, which failed to win a single seat during last year's Lok Sabha elections, has been wiped out with the dalit vote bank parting ways with the BSP.

Presenting figures, she claimed that her party's core Dalit vote bank withstood BSP even in the wake of Modi wave and said there has been no decline in it. Mayawati in her address said, "We supported the UPA for keeping the communal parties away," and added that her party and those supporting the UPA had to bear the brunt of Congress' shortcomings in the elections whose benefits were reaped by the BJP.

Also, slamming the central government for hike in excise duty of petrol and diesel, the BSP chief demanded that the hike be either 'rolled back' or the profits be used to 'address problems of the poor and unemployed'.