Mayawati, in her address, promised that no statues, memorials or parks will be built in her party’s stint if they come back to power.
Former UP Chief Minister and chief of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Mayawati, promised a big change from her last stint in power while campaigning for elections in the state to be held next year. Mayawati, in her address, promised that no statues, memorials or parks will be built in her party’s stint if they come back to power.
Addressing a gathering in Lucknow, Mayawati said: “We do not need to make any new monuments or parks in the name of those who were our guiding lights – we have already done it thok ke bhaav (wholesale) in our previous terms.”
“If I form the government again I will not concentrate on statues or memorials or parks but in governing the state to the best possible ability,” the BSP supremo said, getting loudest cheer to this part in her 30-minute speech.
However, this is not the first time the top Dalit leader has made this promise. In 2016, before the assembly polls, she had vowed to shun ostentatious memorials dedicated to herself.
As the chief minister of the northern said, in the name of “Dalit pride”, Mayawati had commissioned parks and sprawling monuments with giant statues of herself, BSP founder Kanshi Ram and elephants (her party’s symbol).
Mayawati, unaffected by the accusations of megalomania and self-promotion, sanctioned extravagant projects costing crores of public money. Her government, according to the Lokayukta or anti-corruption ombudsman in Uttar Pradesh, spent Rs.1,400 crore on memorials.
Mayawati’s party, however, lost power in UP in 2012 to rival Samajwadi Party of Akhilesh Yadav. Since then, her party has not quite recovered lost ground and performed consistently poor in state and national elections.
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