Oppn, Congress inciting farmers: Mayawati
Faced with an opposition protest in alliance with the angry farmers of Greater Nodia, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Thursday said the opposition is playing dirty politics and misleading the farmers and instigating violence for political gains.
“They are out to malign our image. But our paty [Bahujan Samaj Party] will overcome the slander campaign,” said Mayawati in a press conference here, claiming that the farmers were adequately compensated but the opposition is spreading rumours.
No land was forcibly taken, she said, referring to the protest which was sparked by the demand for adequate compensation from the farmers who turned violent and led to four deaths, including of two cops.
The farmers? unrest in parts of western Uttar Pradesh (Greater Noida) took on a heavier political hue since Wednesday with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi defying clampdown to make it to the ground zero of the protests at Bhatta Parsaul village.
Rahul was arrested and later released by Uttar Pradesh police Thursday wee hours after day of high drama on Wednesday.
She said Congress should look after its own home on the farmers’ issue and not disrupt law and order in Uttar Pradesh.
She attacked the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on their failure to take any initiative on the land acquisition act.
“Rahul should fight his own government,” she said.
She said the BJP and Congress are in league in attacking her government and the “farmers of the country will not forgive them.”
Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi rode the pillion of a motorcycle, eluded the policemen and reached the agitating farmers of Greater Noida’s Bhatta Parsaul village at the crack of dawn Wednesday to express his solidarity with the villagers protesting the state government?s land acquisition.
Joined by All India Congress Committee general secretary Digvijay Singh, Rahul toured the villages, meeting villagers in the hot May sun and assuring them of the backing of his party, a move that his opponents slammed as another example of his ?photo op politics?.
Heavy posse of policemen were deployed in the area and politicians were prevented from reaching the violence-hit village, but Rahul managed to give a slip and score a point by reaching there first among the politicians at 6 am.
After hours of sessions with the villagers, Rahul Gandhi hit out at the Chief Minister Mayawati, saying the the atrocities of the state?s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government were appalling. ?I feel ashamed as an Indian,? said the Congress poster boy.
?The Congress party will not budge from here till the farmers? demands are met,? said Gandhi, even as the administration reportedly asked the two leaders to leave the village or face arrest.
Former Samajwadi Party (SP) member Amar Singh too pulled a Rahul reaching the agitating village, but said he had entered the area in a car and later switched to a motorcycle. He vehemently denied having come to village to gain political vantage.
The BJP also slammed the Maywati government and its leader from Uttar Pradesh Rajnath Singh resorted to a daylong fast on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border near Ghaziabad on Thursday.
Bhatta Parsaul village is the ground zero of a protest by the farmers that claimed the lives of two villagers and two policemen. The farmers demanded greater compensation for their land taken for the Yamuna Expressway.
