Wooing upper caste voters for Bahujan Samaj Party candidates contesting the Bihar elections, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on Tuesday promised quotas for them in government jobs and education institutions if her party came to power in the state.
“The socio-economic condition of upper caste poor is as bad as that of their brethren in other communities in Bihar … my party will provide quota for them in government jobs and education if elected to power,” she said at an election meeting for Shamim Ahmed, the BSP candidate from the Karahgar Assembly seat in the Rohtas district.
Mayawati, a four-term chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, rued that in all the years since Independence, nothing had changed as far as the plight of poor people was concerned, and blamed the successive governments for deficient governance and lack of priorities.
Charging the National Democratic Alliance as well as the secular alliance with making false promises for the weaker sections, farmers and labourers, the BSP supremo said these parties would conveniently renege from their promises once they were installed in power.
Mayawati accused the NDA of working only in the interests of corporates and alleged that the Centre was out to scrap the reservation policy for OBCs and SC/STs under the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s influence.
The BSP, however, would oppose tooth and nail any attempt to tweak reservation policy, she thundered.