Maya not amused by Rahul's 'kisan mahapanchayat'

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati is not amused with what's going on in her state. The chief minister trained guns on Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi who undertook a four-day long padyatra that culminated into a much hyped kisan mahapanchayat at Aligarh on Saturday.

Through an official statement issued in Lucknow, Mayawati sought to give the finer details of her revised land acquisition policy, which she claimed to be the "most farmer-friendly in the entire country."

Dismissing Rahul's campaign against land acquisition in Uttar Pradesh as "politically motivated", she enumerated how her new policy had taken care to do away with the government's role in land acquisition for private purposes – be it for a builder, developer or an industrialist.

"It was for the first time in the country that farmers were given the freedom to negotiate their own terms for acquisition by a private party, who had been bound to not only pay the negotiated market rate but also shell out an annuity for 30 years, besides a number of other benefits to the farmer," she said. She challenged Rahul Gandhi to visit Congress ruled states like Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh where farmers had been reduced to paupers simply because of the anti-farmer land acquisition policies of the Congress governments in those states.

Terming Rahul's forays into dalit homes, where he spent the past few nights, bypassing all security protocols, as "utter gimmick", Mayawati reiterated, "the fact that he did not eat food in a dalit's home where he spent Friday night was in itself a proof of his caste prejudices".

Rahul's claim that he avoided eating in that house because they were extremely poor people failed to impress her. "I can see an anti-dalit mindset behind his refusal to eat in that house which belonged to Uday Vir, who belongs to the lowest of the dalit – 'kanjar' caste', Mayawati pointed out in a statement issued on Saturday.

The UP chief minister said, "The manner in which Rahul Gandhi was busy playing up every incident of crime in Uttar Pradesh and the way the Union government  was seeking reports on each of these incidents  reflects their prejudice against the state simply because it was under the rule of a dalit woman."

Citing glaring incidents of murders, rapes and other heinous crimes in Congress ruled states including Delhi, Mayawati sought to point out, "whenever major crimes are reported in Congress-ruled states like Maharastra, Haryana or Delhi, where rapes and crimes against women were rampant, the Congress-led Centre never bothers to seek a report or even expresses concern, but even a single incident in UP is projected as the worst of all crimes".