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Centre targeting me: Mayawati

— PHOTO: SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY

SEES CONSPIRACY: Bahujan Samaj Party leader and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati at a press conference in New Delhi on Saturday.

NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati on Saturday slammed the Congress-led government at the Centre and its new ally, the Samajwadi Party, for “targeting” her in a five-year-old disproportionate assets case, registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Upset at the CBI filing a counter-affidavit in the Supreme Court, the BSP leader accused the Centre of going “soft” on her arch-rival, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh, in a similar case.

She refused to reveal her party’s strategy in the trust vote the Manmohan Singh government is seeking in the Lok Sabha on July 22.

The BSP, which has 17 members in the House, withdrew outside support to the government on June 29.

Addressing a press conference here, Ms. Mayawati alleged that she was a victim of a “deep-rooted political conspiracy” and was forced to face a “trial by the media” as the ruling establishment was “planting false and motivated information” to tarnish her image.

It was “misusing” the CBI for this end.

“The Congress-led UPA government should not be under any illusion that we will bow down and wilt under their pressure,” she said.

She criticised the CBI Director for acting soon after her party’s withdrawal of support and before the trust vote.

“The CBI boasts itself as the country’s largest and independent investigative agency but behaves like an employee of the Central government,” she alleged.

Ms. Mayawati said the disproportionate assets case was under the purview of the Income Tax Tribunal, a judicial authority, which had scrutinised all documents and ruled there was no evidence against her.

“The CBI Director kept the matter pending from September last year till this May and when he is retiring this month-end has acted at the behest of the Samajwadi Party by filing the affidavit against me in the case,” she alleged.

While the BSP and its leadership were “maligned, targeted and probed,” cases referred to the CBI by the U.P. government were not taken up as some of the senior leaders of the Samajwadi Party were involved, she alleged.

Senior Congress leaders, however, said the Supreme Court had on May 15 directed the CBI to file its counter-affidavit within 30 days but the agency had taken more time.

Condemning Ms. Mayawati’s allegations, they said the Congress “never interfered” in the functioning of the CBI and it was not in the nature of the party to do so.

Senior BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu told journalists: “The government has been using and misusing the CBI whenever it suits it, either to bail out friends or target opponents. When the SP comes close to the Centre, it targets the BSP.”

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