Lucknow: Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Tuesday hit out at the Congress and termed it an “unreliable" party after all six of her party MLAs switched over to the grand old party in Rajasthan.
Taking to Twitter, the former UP chief minister said: “By poaching BSP MLAs, the Congress has proved it is an unreliable party. This is a breach of trust even when the BSP was lending its unconditional support to the Congress government in Rajasthan."
She added: "Instead of fighting with its arch rivals, the Congress always damages the parties that have helped and supported it. Hence, Congress is against Dalits, STs and OBCs and has been non-serious towards the rights of backwards."
The BSP chief also accused the grand old party of being against the principles of Babasaheb Ambedkar, “which is why he had to resign from the post of the country’s first law minister".
“The Congress never let Baba Saheb go to Lok Sabha and neither was he awarded the Bharat Ratna. This is very shameful and sad," she said.
On Monday night, all six BSP MLAs wrote to state assembly Speaker CP Joshi to merge the legislative party with the Congress. MLAs Rajendra Singh Gudha, Jogendra Singh Awana, Wajib Ali, Lakhan Singh Meena, Sandeep Yadav and Deepchand said they were merging their legislative party with the Congress. "All the six BSP MLAs were in constant touch with Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and today they have come into the fold of the Congress," a Congress leader said.
"We took a decision in order to fight against communal forces and to work for the development of the state and stability of the government. Ashok ji is the best Chief Minister and no one can be better than him for Rajasthan. I was impressed with his style of working and polity," news agency ANI quoted Udaipurwati lawmaker Rajendra Gudd.
Saying that it was difficult for them to support Congress from outside, Nadbai MLA Jogendra Singh Awana said, "We have given our resignations letter and also met CP Joshi ji and Ashok ji today. There were several challenges in front of us. On one hand, we were supporting Congress for the development of the state and on the other, we were fighting against them in elections. We all gave a thought to it. We took a decision in favour of the state."
The Rajasthan Assembly has 200 seats. The Congress has 100 MLAs and its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) has one MLA, giving it the majority to run the government. The Congress has also the outside support of 12 out of total 13 independent MLAs. Two seats are vacant.
In 2009, during Gehlot's earlier tenure, all the six BSP MLAs had also defected to Congress. That time, the government was five short of a clear majority.
(With inputs from PTI)
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