Spurned Rs.100-crore offer for RS ticket: Mayawati

Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati Wednesday alleged that a sitting member of her party in the Rajya Sabha offered her Rs.100 crore for re-nominating him for the upper house.

Mayawati also announced two candidates of her party for the Rajya Sabha polls, scheduled for Nov 20.

She said former union minister and present Rajya Sabha member from her party Akhilesh Das had offered her Rs.100 crore for re-nomination.

She added that Das, who joined the BSP after quitting the Congress in 2008, had failed to get the trader community along when he migrated to her party and had thus lost the goodwill of the party.

"I told him bluntly that even if he pays me Rs.200 crore, I will not give him a ticket," she said. Sensing that Mayawati would not nominate him again, Das, a former Lucknow mayor, recently quit the BSP.

Contrary to speculation that the Dalit leader will pick a Dalit and a Brahmin to consolidate her rainbow coalition of castes, Mayawati announced Veer Singh and Rajaram as party candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls.

Based on the strength of the party in the state assembly, both candidates are likely to sail through to the upper house.

Mayawati also demanded imposition of President's rule in Uttar Pradesh.

Taking to reporters at the party office, she said she had limited room to accommodate all castes in the Raya Sabha polls. "My belief in sarvjan stays, but in the Rajya Sabha polls, for many factors I cannot adjust all," she quipped.

She also sought intervention by the governor and said, in wake of the failing law and order, soaring crimes and the collapse of the administrative machinery in Uttar Pradesh, the best option to restore normalcy in the state was dismissal of the Akhilesh Yadav government and invocation of Article 356 that implies President's rule.