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Lucknow: The skeletons
are tumbling out of the corruption cupboard but Uttar Pradesh's
former ruling party, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), is unusually
quiet -- not even reacting to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's
allegation that it was involved in scams of over Rs.40,000 crore.
Akhilesh Yadav late Tuesday accused his predecessor Mayawati of
presiding over the plunder of the state and said her government
was involved in scams of over Rs.40,000 crore. Instead of giving
an angry reaction, as she is prone to, the normally pugnacious
Mayawati, who is now in the Rajya Sabha, has been quiet.
And her party has gone into a huddle in the state, trying to fight
the growing public perception in the wake of evidence that the
Mayawati government was mired in a series of political and
financial irregularities.
Even BSP leaders like Mayawati's close aide Swamy Prasad Maurya,
who has been accusing Akhilesh Yadav and his Samajwadi Party (SP)
of indulging in political vendetta, has chosen not to speak on the
issue.
A senior BSP leader, on condition of anonymity, said that much of
the party was still smarting from the debacle in the state
assembly polls two months ago and was not mobilised enough to take
on the onslaught by the SP government. The party's tally in the
assembly slipped from 206 to a paltry 85.
"Behenji (Mayawati) is sitting in Delhi, attending parliament, as
we are faced with such an attack against us. How do we cope with
all this? Nobody knows," a BSP office-bearer told IANS.
The SP is extracting the maximum mileage out of the situation.
Akhilesh Yadav told reporters late Tuesday that scams were being
unearthed slowly and steadily and a commission would be
constituted soon.
"In days to come you will see many more multi-crore scams being
unearthed," he said.
The list of scams is long. To name a few -- the multi-crore
National Rural Health Mission scandal, the alleged
misappropriation of funds to make gigantic statues of elephants,
the BSP's election symbol, the mismanagement in the purchase of
seeds, the Dalit Prerna Sthal park in Noida and more than a dozen
others.
"It is beyond doubt that Mayawati had her hands in the loot and I
am sure that in due course of time, the long arm of the law will
catch up with her and her cronies," Health Minister Ahmad Hasan
told IANS.
Akhilesh Yadav has already directed officials to escalate the
probe into the sprawling Dalit Prerna Sthal park in Noida, which
was inaugurated by Mayawati at the fag end of her five-year term.
The Lokayukta has already given his report against many ministers
of the BSP government, said a senior official. The SP government
is understood to be on the verge of okaying the demand for a CBI
probe against some ministers, he added.
The CBI, for instance, has interrogated former health minister
Anant Mishra, aka Antoo, twice. Mishra is a close relative of BSP
general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Satish Chandra Mishra,
who is known for his proximity to Mayawati.
The noose is slowly tightening around the BSP's neck and the party
may find itself with few friends.
As former chief minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader
Rajnath Singh put it:
"If the chief minister alleges that there were scams to the tune
of Rs.40,000 crore, we have to take the charge seriously. And the
complicity of Mayawati in such scams cannot be ruled out, direct
or indirect."
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at
mohit.d@ians.in)
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