Thaindian News

Lucknow, May 19 (IANS) Stung by the frontal attack launched by Sonia and Rahul Gandhi against her, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Thursday hit out at the Congress for playing “cheap politics”.

Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh read out a five-page exhaustive statement issued by Mayawati here Thursday evening, giving point by point reply to each of the allegations levelled by the Congress president and her son in Varanasi during the party’s two-day convention.

Rubbishing the charge of “rape of women” and “indiscriminate killing of farmers” by the state police, Singh said: “The chief minister is shocked at the baseless and false accusations statement made by the top Congress leadership, whom one expected to display some responsibility.”

“Before levelling an allegation like rape of women, these senior leaders ought to introspect that they were also maligning women of the area. How would they feel if such allegations were levelled against their own sisters or mothers?” he read out from the chief minister’s statement.

Refuting Rahul Gandhi’s charge of “burning dead bodies of farmers gunned down by the UP police”, Mayawati sought to clarify that the ashes have been confirmed as ashes of cow-dung cakes.

“We had sent samples of the ashes to the Central Forensic Laboratory (CFL), Agra, and we have received a confirmation that those did not contain any remains of a human body,” Mayawati’s statement said.

“We had sent the samples to the forensic lab essentially to find out if some explosives or detonators were used by mischief mongers, who used the garb of farmers to create trouble in Bhatta-Parsaul village of Greater Noida with the intent of defaming the state government. But while that part of the report was still awaited, the CFL scientists gave their opinion on the human ash and bones,” Singh said.

Accusing the Congress of playing “cheap politics” in the name of farmers’ cause, Mayawati challenged the Gandhis to take up the cause of farmers in other parts of the country.

“If these top Congress leaders were truly so concerned about the wellbeing of farmers, why don’t they go to Maharashtra, where farmers were being blatantly deprived of their rights and harassed in the name of setting up of a nuclear plant at Jaitapur or the creation of an international airport near Mumbai?” the statement said.

As for Sonia’s charge about “prevailing anarchy” and “poor law and order” in the state, the chief minister made it a point to reiterate that the “BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) was the only government that has the distinction of ordering stringent action against its own ministers, MPs and MLAs in case they were found to be involved in any criminal activity. You can see how we have never hesitated in sending such elements straight behind bars.”