Weak govt more likely to work for public welfare than strong govt: Mayawati

Giving a new twist to political discourse, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati on Saturday said thar a 'weak government' was more likely to work for public welfare than a 'strong government'.

Mayawati said although Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was ruling both at the Centre and UP for quite some time, yet there had been no improvement in people’s lives so far.

Mayawati was presiding over a meeting of senior BSP functionaries of 9 divisions in eastern and central UP here, wherein she exhorted cadres to expand the party’s base among all sections of society.

According to BSP communiqué, although Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath represented eastern UP, yet the condition of the poor and farmers was in bad shape and migration was on.

The backward region was striving for better law and order and development, however, despite BJP being in power, no worthwhile work had been done, contrary to the claims and slogans of the saffron party, the BSP alleged.

The party further underlined any capital formation in UP was missing and that the private sector continued to exploit brazenly. The ambit of basic amenities was getting restricted and the condition of public services viz. education, health, power, roads, water, transport etc was getting dismal every day.

According to BSP, even the recent Economic Survey had pointed to the grave state of affairs of primary education, which indicated to the cause of concern about our future generation.

Mayawati claimed that on one hand, BJP government was slashing allocation for rural employment and on the other, it was not filling up nearly 700,000 vacant government posts, which was adversely affecting the dalits and other backward castes (OBC).

Reacting to Union Budget 2019-20, she noted the ruling BJP was slowly metamorphosing as a government espousing ‘commercial mentality’ rather than public welfare.

“Rather than framing policies for the good of 1.3 billion people, the BJP government is working in the interests of a handful of capitalists, industrialists and rich, although their prime motive is to only earn profits,” she told the party workers.

In the recent 2019 Lok Sabha polls, BSP, which had forged a pre-poll alliance with Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP), won 10 seats compared to zero in 2014. However, she broke the alliance with SP claiming the socialist party could not transfer its vote to BSP adequately.

She has also inducted her brother Anand Kumar and nephew Akash Anand as key party functionaries to steer BSP ahead, although the move has been criticised for nepotism.