Lucknow, Dec 27 (IANS) A bitter war of words broke out between the leaders of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday as they traded charges over black money.
The day started with media reports suggesting that one of the BSP's official bank accounts in New Delhi had been credited with a whopping Rs 104 crore.
BSP supremo Mayawati hurriedly called a press conference in the state capital and lashed out at the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for singling her party out and claimed that all the funds in party's bank accounts are accounted.
Daring the Prime Minister to disclose the amounts deposited by the BJP and other political parties after the demonetisation, she said she is facing vendetta from the central government.
The former UP Chief Minister also accused the union government of misusing government machinery to harass her party. She demanded that financial transactions of other political parties be also made public.
The BJP by evening fielded a string of leaders to blunt the attack of the Dalit leader.
BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit President Keshav Maurya returned the fire by asking as to how the BSP collected so much money. "The poor of the state want to know from Behen ji, how was this whopping amount collected," he asked.
Terming the money as ill-gotten and collected in lieu of selling tickets to candidates of the state assembly polls due early 2017, Maurya said the money has proved being doubt that "Mayawati was engaged in cheating the dreams of the Dalit icon Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar".
Former aide of Mayawati, who switched loyalty to the BJP earlier this year, Swamy Prasad Maurya also targeted the BSP chief and accused her of "losing her mental balance in the aftermath of demonetisation".
He also alleged that she was selling tickets like in the past and has now slipped into depression over how to pump her black money into the system.
