Date:16/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/16/stories/2008111656561000.htm

National

Yogendra Makwana floats party

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The former Union Minister, Yogendra Makwana, on Saturday formed a new political outfit, the National Bahujan Congress party, and decided to contest the coming Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh.

A day after he was removed as chairman of the AICC Scheduled Castes Department, Dr. Makwana said Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son, Rahul Gandhi, were surrounded by a group of “flattering foes” who indulged in self-promotion.

“The deserving workers and leaders of the party were sidelined and a culture of sycophancy and power seeking has started. The party has denied ticket even to chairmen of the SC Department in Rajasthan and Delhi,” Dr. Makwana said at a press conference.

Quoting some unnamed AICC officials, he alleged that Congress tickets were “sold” in Madhya Pradesh and said the poor sections of society were being humiliated by denying representation to deserving leaders.

Dr. Makwana alleged the Central government was not allocating adequate resources for the scheduled castes, who comprised 20 per cent of the population. Over the past three years, the allocation varied between 2.87 per cent in 2006-07 and 3.16 per cent in 2008-09.

Even the 11th Plan allocated 0.40 per cent of funds for this section and a mere 0.29 per cent for Muslims.

Lamenting the “shrinking” of the Congress, he said the party once represented the poor from all sections of society in general and Scheduled Castes/Tribes, Other Backward Classes and in minorities in particular.

“Despite the sincere efforts of Rahul Gandhi to attract the new generation to the Congress, the party is not benefiting simply because there is no agenda or programme to back his efforts,” he said.

Dr. Makwana also released a charge-sheet accusing the Congress of being “anti-Dalit.”

Motivated: Congress

The Congress said the decision of Dr. Makwana to float a new party explains that whatever charges he had hurled against the party was “motivated” and “baseless.”

Congress Media Department chairman M. Veerappa Moily said: “We will meet him in the poll field.” He mocked at Dr. Makwana’s accusations against the Congress and said a true soldier of the party would never abandon it when it was facing elections in six States.

“A true Congressman would be fighting in the battle instead of joining opponents.”