Muzaffarnagar: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) will make West Uttar Pradesh a separate state, party chief Mayawati said, promising that her party will take concrete steps towards it if voted to power, PTI reported.
She was addressing a campaign rally here for the BSP candidate from Muzaffarnagar Lok Sabha seat, Dara Singh Prajapati. She claimed that BJP has a very slim chance to come back to power in the Centre.
"You want western Uttar Pradesh to become a separate state. For this, concrete steps will be taken if our government comes to power at the Centre," Mayawati told the gathering.
The BSP chief said if free and fair elections are held and voting machines are not tampered with, the BJP will not return to power this time.
"Most of the BJP's time was spent on making wealthy businessmen wealthier and protecting them... The BJP and other parties run their organisations and contest elections with the support of these businesses. This was revealed by electoral bond data," she added.
The former chief minister hit out at the BJP government for not recruiting people for vacant posts reserved for backward communities and making reservations in promotion redundant.
"In the last few years, with the BJP in power at the Centre and in most states, the progress of Muslims has stopped to a great extent. Violence in the name of religion has increased here," Mayawati said, adding that poor people of the general category have also not received any benefits under the BJP's rule.
Prajapati is pitted against Sanjeev Kumar Balyan of the BJP and Harendra Singh Malik of the Samajwadi Party (SP).