Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati on Saturday blamed the Opposition for the Allahabad blast, which left one dead and five injured, including UP Institutional Finance (stamps and registration) Minister Nand Gopal Nandi.
She also went on to claim that she had not only brought various mafia dons to book in the state, but had also seized their ill-gotten property and assets to the tune of Rs 230 crore over the past three years.
Addressing a press conference in Lucknow, she said: "The July 12 blast was carried out to target my minister, Nand Gopal Nandi, whose popularity had become an eye sore for the entire Opposition, whom he left far behind at the 2007 state assembly election."
She said, "The fact that Nandi gave a devastating defeat to influential nominees of the Samajwadi Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, signalled his emergence as the most popular leader of the area, thereby becoming a threat to different Opposition parties."
Describing the minister's assailants as 'close associates' of criminal-turned Samajwadi Party legislator Vijay Misra, she said, "It is an open secret that Vijay Misra's close kin Dilip Misra had intimidated and beaten up Nandi whom they wanted out of the election fray." She said, "Nandi, however, decided to fight
it out and gave them all a run for their money."
As if to substantiate her allegations against the two Misras, she sought to point out, "There were 30 criminal cases pending against Vijay Misra while Dilip Misra was involved in as many as 58 criminal cases."
Reacting to the remarks of different Opposition leaders who were critical of her "poor law and order", which they blamed as the reason behind the Allahabad blast, she remarked, "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones."
Citing different incidents of major violence and crime during successive political regimes over the past several decades, the BSP supremo lambasted Opposition parties who had, of late, labelled her current regime as 'jungle-raj'.
Starting with the assassination of then Congress Railway Minister Lalit Narain Misra in the seventies, she sought to also give examples like the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, the anti-Sikh riots, the terrorist attack on Parliament and repeated terrorist and Maoist attacks as analogies to refute 'jungle-raj' being levelled against her by the Congress, SP and BJP alike.
She sought to point out, "As many as 38 politicians were murdered between 1991 and 2005, while there were 42 attempts to murder during the same period."