Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Thursday alleged that the BJP was trying to “communalise” the raging controversy over derogatory remarks by targeting her top aide and Muslim face of her party Nasimuddin Siddiqui.
Apart from being “casteist and two-faced” the BJP is making all efforts to communalise the issue for electoral benefit, Ms. Mayawati said, as BJP Mahila Morcha activists staged a demonstration in Lucknow demanding Mr. Siddiqui’s arrest. Along with Ms. Mayawati and two other top leaders, Mr. Siddiqui, BSP general secretary, was booked for allegedly using sexist remarks against expelled BJP leader Dayashankar Singh’s wife and daughter at a protest recently in Lucknow.
In its protests and public posturing, the BJP has, however, mainly demanded action against Mr. Siddiqui, with little mention of other BSP leaders. Ms. Mayawati argued Mr. Siddiqui was being singled out and specially “targeted” through demands for his arrest. “It is natural for people to wonder why is the BJP leaving aside all other people named in the FIR, and only demanding the arrest of Nasimuddin Siddiqui? This is when, unlike BJP leader Dayashankar Singh, none of the BSP leaders used derogatory and objectionable comments,” Ms. Mayawati said.
Under the banner “Mahilao ke Samman mein, BJP maidan mein” (For women’s honour, BJP on the field), the party’s women workers took to the streets demanding action against Mr. Siddiqui. They tried to take a procession to the Raj Bhawan here but were prevented from doing so by the police. The BJP claimed its workers were manhandled and ill-treated by police and that several of its women workers were injured in the police action. BJP State president Keshav Prasad Maurya alleged the police action against his party workers reflected the tacit understanding between the SP and the BSP—Bua-Bhatija (a reference to Ms. Mayawat and Akhilesh Yadav).
