Mayawati says Congress is ‘unreliable’ after MLAs’ defection

Lucknow, Sep 17 (IANS) Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) President Mayawati on Tuesday lashed out at the Congress and termed it an "unreliable" party after all six of her party MLAs switched over to the Congress in Rajasthan.

The former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister said: "By poaching on BSP MLAs, the Congress has proved it is an unreliable party. This is a breach of trust even when the BSP was lending its unconditional support to the Congress government in Rajasthan."

"Instead of fighting with its arch-rivals, the Congress always damages the parties that help and support it. Hence, Congress is against Dalits, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Communities, and has been non-serious towards the rights of the backward community," said Mayawati.

The BSP Chief also accused the Congress of being against the principles of Ambedkar, "which is why he had to resign from the post of the country's first Law Minister".

"The Congress never let Dr Ambedkar go to Lok Sabha and neither was he awarded the Bharat Ratna. This is very shameful and sad," she said.

On Monday night, all six BSP MLAs from Rajasthan wrote to state Assembly Speaker C.P. Joshi to merge the Legislative party with the Congress.

The MLAs -- Rajendra Singh Gudha, Jogendra Singh Awana, Wajib Ali, Lakhan Singh Meena, Sandeep Yadav and Deepchand -- said they were merging their Legislative party with the Congress.

A news agency quoted Udaipurwati lawmaker Rajendra Singh Guddha as saying, "We took a decision in order to fight against communal forces and to work for the development of the state and stability of the government. Ashok Gehlot is the best Chief Minister and no one can be better than him for Rajasthan. I am impressed with his style of working and polity."

Nadbai MLA Jogendra Singh Awana, who left the BSP for the Congress, said, "It was difficult to support the Congress from outside. On one hand, we were supporting them for the development of the state and on the other we were fighting against them in elections. We all gave a thought to it. We took a decision in favour of the state."

Rajasthan Assembly has 200 seats. After the BSP MLAs crossed over, the Congress now has 106 MLAs and its ally the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) has one MLA. The Congress also has the outside support of 12 out of the total 13 independent MLAs. Two seats are vacant.

In 2009, during Gehlot's earlier tenure, all the six BSP MLAs had also defected to the Congress. At that time, the government was five short of a clear majority.