Maya expels BSP leader who said Rahul unlikely to be PM

Tribune News Service

Lucknow/New Delhi, July 17

BSP supremo Mayawati on Tuesday removed Jai Prakash Singh from the posts of party’s national vice-president and coordinator for saying that Congress president Rahul Gandhi was unlikely to become the Prime Minister as he resembled his mother Sonia Gandhi more than his father Rajiv Gandhi.

Addressing a zonal meeting of party workers from Lucknow and Kanpur division to discuss the 2019 poll strategy, Singh had said that Rahul Gandhi could not succeed in politics as he looked more like his foreigner mother.

A statement issued by Mayawati said, “I came to know about the BSP national coordinator Jai Prakash Singh’s speech in which he spoke against the BSP ideology. He made personal remarks against the leadership of a rival party. He has been removed from his post with immediate effect.”

She instructed all party leaders to stick to BSP ideals and vision. She asked them to draft their speeches beforehand so as not to commit such mistakes. Mayawati’s firm action indicates that she is not ready to displease the Congress leadership at any cost. The party looks forward to an alliance with the Congress in three states going to the polls in near future.

In fact, Jai Prakash Singh had also taken a jibe at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath saying had the temple been strong enough, the priest (reference to Yogi Adityanath) would not have abandoned it to become the CM. Mayawati asked her cadres to confine themselves only to BSP’s ideology, its leadership, programmes, and saints and personalities related to Dalits and Backward Classes in their speeches.

“But under its garb, they must not make derogatory utterances against others’ saints, gurus and notable personalities,” she said.

With the BSP chief not taking names of Rahul, Yogi or any party regarding offensive remarks, she seems to have thrown up a riddle in political circles about her future plans.