In an apparent attempt to make a dent in the Mayawati’s Dalit vote bank, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said the Dalit community had suffered the most during the BSP supremo’s regime even as he termed the recent sacking of the four UP ministers by her as an ‘eyewash’.
“Mayawati calls herself leader of the Dalits, but the latter have suffered the most in her rule,” Rahul said while addressing election meetings at Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur-Kheri district, about 150 kilometres from here, recalling the recurring droughts in the impoverished Bundelkhand region of the state.
“Dalits asked me during my visits to Bundelkhand why Mayawati did not visit them when they were facing the drought,” the Congress leader said, as he tried to project the his party as the ‘messiah’ of the community.
“I have seen people starving in Bundelkhand and that is why our government has brought the Right to Food bill,” he said, adding it would go a long way in mitigating the sufferings of the people in the region and other parts of the State.
Referring to recent sacking of four ministers by Mayawati, he observed: “Why did she not sack them when they were looting Central funds. Didn’t she knew this before? Who is she trying to fool? She allowed them to loot for five years and removed them a month before the polls.”
“Mayawati sacked four corrupt ministers, but gave their portfolios to another corrupt minister,” he said referring to Maya’s trusted aide Naseemdudin Siddique.
The Congress leader referred to Babu Singh Kushwaha, former family welfare minister in UP, who, he said, had been given the portfolio in order to ‘loot’ the National Rural Health Mission funds.
“Now Kushwaha has been making rounds of the CBI to save himself,” he said.
He also referred to his frequent visits to the villages and Dalit households that his opponents has termed them ‘drama’.
“If it is drama, then I will keep on enacting this drama,” he said, adding winning elections was not his intention. “I want to change the state,” he added.
“When Rajiv Gandhi had introduced computers, the opponents had called him mad...see what that mad person has done,” he said referring to the information technology revolution as he exhorted people to give Congress a chance.