I changed Uttar Pradesh in three years: Maya

Tall claims about her government's achievements and heavy bashing of the Congress-led UPA regime at the Centre remained Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati's mainstay at a press meet in Lucknow on Thursday to mark completion of her three years in office.

"What my government has achieved over a period of three years, since we rode on to power entirely on our own strength, cannot be matched by any other political party that has ever remained in power in the state,'' Mayawati told a crowded press conference.

Claiming that her government had undertaken numerous programmes for the economic well being and upliftment of the poor and the downtrodden, the UP chief minister went on to add, "When I assumed office in May, 2007, there was utter jungle raj in Uttar Pradesh ; and I am proud of the fact that in three years, I have been able to create a terror-free, frear-free, crime-free , injustice-free and corruption-free environment by putting he law of the land back on the rails."

Vehemently defending her fad for construction of memorials and erection of statues of herself and certain Dalit icons, she said, "Yes I have built memorials and statues to commemorate the rich contribution of such personalities who had done yeoman social service and reforms, but their work never received due recognition in successive Congress governments or the other regimes."

In her bid to justify the allocation of more than Rs. 6000 crore towards these memorials and statues, she sought to emphasise, "Whatever I have spent each year towards commemoration of these icons was not more than one per cent of the state's annual Budget."

Flaying the Centre for "neglecting UP, she said,  "Had the Central government extended their cooperation in adequately sharing the cost of various development programs, we could have done wonders to the state," she added.

Training the guns at the Centre, she said, "The Centre had clearly deprived the state of a whopping sum of Rs. 17000 crore, that was the state's legitimate share towards various schemes already carried out over the past three years."

And harping on what she termed the Congress-led government's "conspiracy" against her government, Mayawati recalled how the Centre had not cared to pay any heed to her repeated demand for a special economic package of Rs 80,000 crore for the upliftment of the backward regions of Bundelkhand and Purvanchal.

According to her, "The Central government had even gone to the extent of violating the provisions of an order of the country's apex court, that had clearly ruled in 2005 that the Centre would have to bear the entire financial burden of programmes initiated by it in states."

She said, "The recent decision of the central government on right to education was a point in that very regard; and even as the UPA regime decided to insure free education across the country, it failed to make corresponding financial provisions for it."

In a sharp deviation from the past practice, Mayawati refrained from holding any big bash on this occasion. Senior bureaucrats and cops were treated to a sumptuous lunch together with the media.