The Times of India News Service

LUCKNOW: Bahujan Samaj Party vice president Mayawati on Tuesday upped her ante against the BJP and the Congress, holding them responsible for the recent spate of attacks on Dalits and minorities in the state.

On her return from Fatehpur where five members of a Dalit family were battered to death, the former chief minister said that these attacks had been engineered by "men close to the ruling BJP."

The rising popularity of BSP amongst Dalits and minorities had unnerved the two parties, she said. To buttress her point, she said that the leaders of the two parties thought that once Dalits and minorities were harassed, the Bahujan Samaj Party would pull up the upper castes which will lead to their return to their (Congress and BJP) fold. "This proved to be their undoing because the BSP was not against the upper castes as such, but was critical of those who perpetrated atrocities on Dalits and minorities," she said.

About the Aligarh and Fatehpur incidents, the BSP leader said at both the places the killings were effected by men known for their proximity with a minister in the BJP government. She said that she had called a meeting of the executive committee of the party to chalk out an agitation programme to set things right and expose the perpetrators.

Mayawati then went on to attack Mulayam Singh Yadav accusing of wanting to finish her. She said Muslims had started gravitating towards BSP causing him sleepless nights. She said if Muslims quit the Samajwadi Party in droves, it would virtually become irrelevant in Uttar Pradesh and this scenario was dreadful for the former defence minister.

She demanded the dismissal of the Rajnath Singh government for its all round failure and said that the elections should be held under the President's rule.