Mayawati withdraws support to UPA government

Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati has withdrawn her party's support to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre.

The BSP has 17 members in the Lok Sabha, which has an effective strength of 543. The UPA currently has the support of 220 members. The Left parties, which have 59 lawmakers as a block, extend outside support to the government.

Mayawati has accused the UPA of neglecting Uttar Pradesh and meting out step-motherly treatment to her party and the UP government.

The BSP supremo sent a letter, stating her withdrawal of support, to President Pratibha Patil and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

Mayawati added that she will not enter into any electoral alliance with either the Congress or the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Mayawati displayed copies of the letter she had written to President Patil, Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and Vice President Mohammad Ansari and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

She charged both Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress of misusing the Central Bureau of Investigation and attempting to implicate her in the Taj Corridor case.

She accused the Congress of only making false promises.

The Uttar Pradesh chief minister said Bundelkhand and Poorvanchal regions had witnessed unprecedented drought, but the Union government did not do anything besides making false promises.

"I personally met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and asked him to give an economic package of Rs 88,000 crore and he promised to do something about it. Till date, nothing had been done," she said.

PTI adds:

Similarly, she dismissed another question that whether she took this decision because of the reported warming up of ties between SP and Congress, she said both were down and out in Uttar Pradesh.

Mayawati said she had given an open warning to the UPA in January this year that BSP would withdraw support if the Congress-led coalition 'did not mend its ways' and change its step-motherly attitude towards the state government.

The chief minister said though she had expected that the Congress would stop attacking her and her party for its own political interest, there was no change in the party's attitude.

She said that when the Congress-led coalition replaced NDA, headed by BJP, at the Centre, she had expected that the government would ensure that she gets justice in the Taj Corridor and other related issues.

"But unfortunately Congress proved worse than BJP as instead of ensuring justice, Congress has kept the matter hanging during the last four years for its own political interest," she said.

Mayawati alleged that when her party refused to enter into an electoral alliance with the BJP at the Centre prior to the previous Lok Sabha elections, the saffron party 'falsely implicated' her in the Taj Corridor case to exert pressure.

She also accused the previous NDA government of misusing the CBI and filing a disproportionate assets case against her to tarnish her and her party's image.