Mayawati says she'll convert to Buddhism 'if BJP doesn't change mindset towards Dalits'

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Tuesday attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), saying it should change its mindset towards the Dalits, else she would be forced to convert to Buddhism like Bhimrao Ambedkar.

While addressing a crowd in Azamgarh, Mayawati said, "I throw an open challenge to the BJP to change its casteist and communal mindset towards the Dalits, the Adivasis, the Backward classes and also those, who have changed their religion or else I will also have to take a decision towards changing my religion to Buddhism."

Further expressing her views on Ambedkar, Mayawati said that after witnessing discrimination in the 'varna vyawastha' (caste system) in Hinduism, he had called on the Shankaracharyas and seers to modify it.

Ambedkar, a little before his death, converted to Buddhism in Nagpur along with his followers, she said.

Also, alleging that the BJP had again started its campaign to mislead the poor and the middle classes in view of the next Lok Sabha polls and Assembly elections in some states, like it did in 2014, Mayawati said that it was now clear that the party would no longer get its 'acche din' (good days) back.

"There are problems relating to poverty, inflation and unemployment everywhere. People will give a befitting reply to them in the coming local bodies elections and later in the Lok Sabha polls," she said.

"To serve its political motives, the BJP has now weakened constitutional institutions and the media. They have also weakened the democracy to a great extent. Things are being done in an autocratic and arbitrary manner. Conditions today have surpassed those prevailing during the Emergency in 1975," she added at a party rally.