The Hindu : 136 cases against Mulayam

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 15, 2003

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136 cases against Mulayam

By J.P. Shukla

LUCKNOW APRIL 14. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mayawati, said here today that criminal cases have been registered against the Samajwadi Party leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and other leaders of his party for "fraudulently" recording the proceedings of one of her party meetings held in February 2001 and "tampering" with tapes with criminal intent. Addressing party workers at the much-touted "Mahapardaphash rally" at the Ambedkar Maidan here, she announced that 136 cases relating to "misuse" of the Chief Minister's discretionary fund during Mr. Yadav's tenure had been registered in 40 districts across the State. "The State Government has collected enough evidence of the bunglings committed by the Samajwadi Party leader during his Chief Ministership in utilisation of the discretionary funds," she said, charging that "this was deliberate defalcation of public money and criminal breach of trust".

She said investigations would be held into misuse of discretionary funds by the Congress leader, Motilal Vora, when he was Uttar Pradesh Governor. "Preliminary enquiries have yielded enough evidence to prove the case."

The Chief Minister said that "Mulayam Singh Yadav and his associates will not be spared and they will have to cool their heels in jail.'' Mayawati would be to Mulayam Singh what Ram was for Ravana or Krishna for Kamsa, she warned.

She had announced plans to hold today's rally to "expose the political conspiracy hatched by the Samajwadi Party and the Congress" in releasing two videotapes — one during the last session of the U.P. Assembly and the other a week ago — that showed her in a poor light. The recordings were done illegally and the tapes were selectively edited to distort the references in an attempt to defame her, she alleged.

The Chief Minister spoke for about 100 minutes amid intermittent slogans such as "Behanji se jo takrayega, choor choor ho jayega" (whoever dares to come in the way of Bahenji (Mayawati) will be crushed) and devoted most of her speech to attacking the Samajwadi Party leader.

Her "clarification" about the contents of the two tapes was what she had said in the past. Referring to the second tape, she said she had not spoken anything against Hindu gods as alleged. It was only her advice to Dalits not to waste money by making offerings to gods in temples built in their own colonies and instead put it to more practical use.

Ms. Mayawati appealed to the Hindu religious leaders to "reform" the religion and warned if they failed to do justice to Dalits, she might also be forced to emulate Dr. Ambedkar and become a Buddhist.

Giving her reasons on why the SP had released "doctored tapes", she said that Mr. Yadav wanted to topple her Government by all means.

She said that Mr. Yadav had been especially agitated by the understanding between the BJP and BSP to contest the coming Lok Sabha elections in U.P. jointly. Castigating the Congress, she said the party was making attempts to weaken her support base by encouraging the Lok Janshakti Party leader, Ram Vilas Paswan, and Udit Raj of the Justice Party. "These people have no support worth the name and belong to castes having little representation in U.P."

Ms. Mayawati announced plans to put up a statue in honour of her party supremo, Kanshi Ram, at the party's cost. "Manuwadis might oppose the idea on the ground that the statue of only a dead person should be put up, but Kanshi Ram had said he himself was in its favour," the Chief Minister said.

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