Both Congress, BJP angled for BSP’s support in 2004: Mayawati

LUCKNOW - Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati Saturday said both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tried to make her align with them in 2004 but she had refused them in the “larger interest” of the her party.

“It was in the larger interest of our party and its mission that I just refused to fall prey to the bait thrown by both Congress and BJP,” Mayawati said, addressing a gathering of party MPs, legislators and all office bearers at the party state headquarters here.

All roads around the party office in the posh Mall Road area were shut to the public, leading to chaos and prolonged jams on the remaining thoroughfares in the neighbourhood. Hundreds of policemen and local officials were also deployed.

Media was however kept away, except for camera persons who were allowed a very brief photo opportunity.

While a press release later issued by the party was limited to the instructions that Mayawati gave to the office-bearers, some participants disclosed a lot more.

Mayawati was stated to have told the gathering how BJP and the Congress tried to lure her into an alliance which she turned down.

“It started with the BJP offering to support me endlessly as chief minister in 2004, provided I agreed to contest the then Lok Sabha election in alliance with them; the top BJP leadership also threatened to withdraw support in case I did not agree to sign the deal. But I knew that such an alliance was not in the larger interest of our party, so I chose to part ways with them,” she told the gathering.

“No sooner than I spurned the BJP offer, Congress came forward with another alluring offer,” she said.

“However, realizing that even though it could have benefitted me personally, such an alliance could be detrimental to our party and the BSP movement, I said a flat ‘no’ to the Congress, because the party’s interest always stood well above my personal interests,” she asserted.

“I am aware that I was falsely implicated in these cases simply because I refused to toe either the BJP or the Congress line,” she said, adding “we are fighting out the CBI in the country’s highest court and in case we fail to get justice, we will go to the court of the people”.

Mayawati also said the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) central government had been continuously discriminating against her government by repeatedly denying the state its due.

She also laid much emphasis on maintenance of discipline in the party ranks. “I have not acted in complaints of indiscipline by some party workers at the recently concluded panchayat elections, but if such acts are repeated in future, no one would be spared,” she warned.