Mayawati has squandered taxpayers' money on park: Digvijay

Hours after Mayawati inaugurated the Rs 685-crore memorial park in Noida, Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh on Friday accused the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister of squandering the hard earned money of the people of the country on the building of monuments, parks and her own statues.

"Mayawatiji has always been complaining about lack of funds from Government of India. On the contrary, the Government of India has given much more than what she had asked for. She had asked for a package of Rs 80,000 crore, but we have given her a package of more than Rs 2,50,000 crore in the last four years," said Singh.

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"But where has she spent, she has spent in building parks and monuments, building elephants, Rs 1 to 2 crore on each elephant. Is this money hardly spent? The hard earned money of the taxpayers and people of this country. She has squandered money on these monuments and parks and building her own statues," he added.

Stating that the Congress Party has always worked for the betterment of dalits, Digvijay Singh said, "We are pleased if Dalit icons statues are erected."

"But we object if Mayawatiji erects her own statue. She herself garlands her own statue, offers flowers to that statue's feet. What is this? Probably, she is not very sure whether any one will build her statue later on," he added.

Mayawati inaugurated a 36-acre park which houses memorials of Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram besides statues of herself and of 20 elephants, the BSP symbol each costing Rs 70 lakh.

A group of Buddhist monks offered prayers after she inaugurated her dream 33-acre park. Many political outfits have criticised Mayawati over this park and termed that this move is aimed at the assembly elections scheduled next year.

The UP chief minister, however, after the inauguration silencing all her critics said that the money spent on the park came from donations and only "one per cent" of funds from the state government were used.