In a shocking incident, the party workers of Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) blackened faces of two BSP leaders, garlanded them with shoes and slippers and paraded them outside the party office on Tuesday.
#WATCH Rajasthan: BSP workers blackened faces of party’s national coordinator Ramji Gautam&former BSP state incharge Sitaram¶ded them on donkeys,in Jaipur today.The workers also garlanded them with shoes&alleged that these leaders were indulging in anti-party activities pic.twitter.com/Vjvn1kur2w
— ANI (@ANI) October 22, 2019
In the video which has now gone viral, the party workers, who alleged corruption in ticket allocation in the 2018 Rajasthan Assembly polls, were seen blackening the faces of Ramji Gautam, the national coordinator, and Sitaram, former in-charge of the party’s state unit, and garlanding them with shoes. They also made Ramji Gautam sit on a donkey and paraded outside the party office in Banipark.
Ramji Gautam, a former national vice president of the BSP, had been appointed a national coordinator by Mayawati in June.
“Our workers are upset with the leaders. The workers have worked on the ground for five years but they have given the ticket to parachute candidates, who are of the BJP and the Congress, in lieu of money. BSP workers and leaders are being ignored and exploited,” a BSP worker present there said, furthering: “We have held three demonstrations here but the leaders have not conveyed our plight (to BSP chief Mayawati). Therefore, we had to take this step”.
Condemning the incident, the party chief, Mayawati termed it as a shameful act and blamed the Congress for it.
कांग्रेस पार्टी ने पहले राजस्थान में बीएसपी विधायकों को तोड़ा और अब मूवमेन्ट को अघात पहुँचाने के लिए वहाँ वरिष्ठ लोगों पर हमला करवा रही है जो अति-निन्दनीय व शर्मनाक है। कांग्रेस अम्बेडकरवादी मूवमेन्ट के खिलाफ काफी गलत परम्परा डाल रही है जिसका जैसे को तैसा जवाब लोग दे सकते हैं।
— Mayawati (@Mayawati) October 22, 2019
Her Tweet in Hindi alleged that the Congress first indulged in horse-trading and now it is organising attacks on BSP leaders in the state.
Meanwhile, Archana Sharma, vice president, Pradesh Congress Committee rejected the allegations of Mayawati and said, “This video is unfortunate. However, it also shows that there were internal differences within the BSP and as a result, their own party members tortured BSP leaders. In this situation, I disagree with Mayawati’s comment as Congress has no role in this matter. Further, in terms of law and order situation, if someone lodges a complaint in this direction, then action shall be taken.”
Finding it tough to digest that all her six MLAs in Rajasthan had jumped BSP to join Congress again, Mayawati has earlier also accused Congress of encouraging ‘communal forces’ within the country by weakening the voices which are speaking out against the said ‘communal forces’.
Taking a jibe on Congress on Twitter, Mayawati accused Congress of being anti-Dalit.
Mayawati, who after the 2018 assembly elections in Rajasthan, had declared that her party will stay out of government but will give outside support, has taken to Twitter to unleash her acrimony at the Congress party. Notably, BSP continues to support the Kamal Nath-led Congress Government in Madhya Pradesh with its two MLAs.
Amusingly, in recent past, the BSP supremo has been quite vocal about her repugnance towards the grand old party. She had recently slammed the Congress party and former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru blaming them to be the root cause of Jammu and Kashmir problems.
Earlier too, Mayawati had, slammed the Congress and opposition parties over their attempted visit to Kashmir. Criticising their intention behind the visit Mayawati stated that the opposition leaders should rather have waited and given the government some time to normalise the situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
Notably, during the Karnataka crisis, the BSP supremo had snubbed the Congress-JDS coalition and asked lone BSP MLA to abstain from the trust vote.
