Rahul Gandhi's clarification on reservation false and misleading: Mayawati

Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati alleged Wednesday that Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was making misleading statements about reservation, and said his own party did not let the Bill on SC/ST reservation in promotions pass during its 10-year rule at the Centre.

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister also claimed that when not in power, the Congress talks about the "neglected" classes of SC, ST and OBC but when in power, it works "against" their interests.

"Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's clarification that he is not against reservation is clearly a misleading and false statement. During the 10 years of his active participation in the government before the BJP came to power at the Centre, he, along with the SP (Samajwadi Party), did not let the Bill for SC/ST reservation in promotions pass," Mayawati posted in Hindi on X.

"Their claim of increasing the reservation limit in the country from 50 per cent is also a hoax because if their intentions were clear, this work would have definitely been done during the previous Congress governments," she added.

The Congress neither implemented OBC reservation nor SC/ST reservation properly, the BSP chief said in a series of posts.

"It is clear from this that when the Congress is not in power, it talks big about the welfare and interests of these neglected SC/ST/OBC for the sake of their votes, but when it is in power, it continuously works against their interests. People should be cautious of this conspiracy," she added.

Mayawati's BSP is officially neither a part of the BJP-led NDA nor the Opposition INDIA bloc, whose key participants include the Congress and the SP.