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Alliance limited to U.P., says Mayawati

By Our Special Correspondent

The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mayawati, addressing a press conference in New Delhi on Saturday. — Photo: S. Arneja

NEW DELHI MAY 25. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mayawati, today clarified that the BSP-BJP alliance was limited to the State and that her party would contest elections on its own in other parts of the country.

Her remarks came during an interaction with the media on her first visit to the capital after taking over as Chief Minister.

Ms. Mayawati, however, promised to stick by the agreement reached with the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. She would support whatever action the NDA Government took in dealing with the situation on the border, and on the question of the next Presidential candidate.

She did not see much contradiction in her championing of the Dalit cause and her opposition to Narayanan's candidature for a second term as President. ``Our agreement with the BJP is that we will support them on the question of the election of President, the rest is for my party to deal with,'' was her cryptic reply.

Ms. Mayawati defended her transfer policy and other measures. She also launched a diatribe against her bete noire, the Samajwadi Party leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav. The ``large-scale transfers'' were effected to tone up administration. ``Let anybody prove that it was done for monetary considerations and I will quit politics,'' she said.

The Chief Minister said that she was not favouring officers of her caste, as alleged by her opponents and gave figures to substantiate her claim that most of the new officers given plum postings were from the upper castes.

She also accused Mr. Yadav of trying to destabilise her Government by pressuring the 14 Muslim MLAs in her party to defect on the question of her aligning with the BJP. ``The manner in which he is appealing to their religious sentiments may compel the Hindu MLas in his party to defect to my side,'' she said and came down hard on the SP chief for accusing her of misusing the Harijan Act.

She said Mr. Yadav had taken the BJP's help in the past to come to power. ``The BJP is communal when it supports me, but when Mr. Yadav takes its help to become a Minister as he did in 1977 or the Chief Minister in 1989, then it is not communal,'' she said.

Meanwhile, Ms. Mayawati's refusal to back Mr. Narayanan was criticised by the Dalit leader, Udit Raj, who is about to launch a new Dalit-Muslim party. He accused her of betraying the interests of Dalits and siding with communal forces. ``The BSP was formed as a party for the Dalits, of the Dalits and by the Dalits, today she is supporting the communal forces against an eminent Dalit,'' he said.

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