Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Saturday said that those seen at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's roadshow in Varanasi were "mere spectators" brought in from other states and districts in Uttar Pradesh where voting had already taken place.
Addressing a rally in Rohaniya, 20 km away from Varanasi, she also asserted that the BJP and the SP-Congress combine were fighting for second and third place in the UP polls.
"The BJP is gloating over the massive crowds that had turned up at Modi's roadshow here. However, the people who were cheering the Prime Minister, I have learnt, were tamashbeen (mere spectators) who were brought in from other districts, where voting is already complete, and even from other states like Bihar and Madhya Pradesh," Mayawati said.
She said the BJP had deputed the entire Union cabinet and the party's top brass in the Prime Minister's parliamentary constituency.
"They have focussed their energies on bringing in crowds from far and wide. But it is the locals who vote in an election anywhere. Our huge rally here is attended by local crowds which proves that it is the BSP which enjoys actual public support and is poised to form the next government in the state," Mayawati said.
Taking a dig at the Prime Minister's visit to Kashi Vishwanath and Kaal Bhairav temples, the BSP supremo said prayers offered at the shrines would be of no avail.
"The very people who had been hired to stand beside the streets, carrying BJP flags and wearing BJP caps, and throw flowers at the PM's cavalcade may end up not voting for the party in the elections," she said.
The BSP supremo also lambasted the Congress for entering into an alliance with the ruling Samajwadi Party "against which there is tremendous public anger".
"The joint road show carried out by Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav shows that both the BJP and the SP-Congress alliance have reconciled to defeat and were now fighting against each other for securing the second position. They are just fighting for the second and third positions," she said.
Mayawati, who has fielded nearly 100 Muslim candidates in the ongoing elections, cautioned the minority community against "wasting" their votes by supporting the SP-Congress alliance.
"The Congress has for long been irrelevant in state politics while the SP is riven by a bitter family feud which may result in different factions working to defeat each other," he said.
In an oblique reference to the BJP's recent attempts to aggressively woo a section of Dalits and OBCs, Mayawati told her supporters to not get hoodwinked by such "antics".
"They are working hard to disown their anti-Dalit and anti-OBC past. Their decision to appoint an OBC (Keshav Prasad Maurya) as the state president in place of a Brahmin (Laxmi Kant Vajpayee) was just a clever ploy you should beware of," the BSP supremo remarked.
"If, by an accident, the BJP happens to come to power in UP then backed by the government at the Centre, the party will work towards fulfilling the RSS agenda of doing away with reservations," she said.
"Reservations for Dalits was a direct result of the endeavours of of Baba Saheb Ambedkar. When V P Singh became the Prime Minister, he posthumously conferred Bharat Ratna on Ambedkar and implemented Mandal Commission whereby the reservation facility was extended to Backward Classes.
"Our Dalit and OBC friends must not forget that it was the BJP which pulled down Singh's government and it was BJP supporters who held violent agitations demanding withdrawal of Mandal," the BSP supremo said.
Mayawati also questioned the Prime Minister's OBC status and alleged that he belongs to an upper caste,
"He belongs to an upper caste called Ghanchi, which we call Teli (oilpresser) in our part of the country. When Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, he had deliberately got his caste group included in OBC list to place a hurdle in the way of backward classes realising their full potential," she claimed.
The road so far...
Image: BSP Supremo Mayawati addressing a rally in Varanasi on Saturday. Photograph: PTI Photo