Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Tuesday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party has followed “anti-people policies” that the United Progressive Alliance government pursued during its rule. Mayawati’s party had supported the Bharat Bandh that was called by the Congress on Monday to protest rising fuel prices, but skipped a Congress-led demonstration in New Delhi.
“Fuel prices have spun out of control and the Modi government does not wish to upset its industrialist friends,” Mayawati said, according to IANS. She said that while the prices could be controlled if the Centre tried, the Narendra Modi-led government “has no sympathy for the middle class and the poor”.
“The UPA-2 also made a similar mistake of decentralising the prices of petrol in June 2010, after which there was anger among the people of the country and eventually they were voted out,” the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister told reporters in Lucknow, according to News18. “The BJP, soon after coming to power, decentralised the diesel prices which affected the farmers and common man. The BJP is also going to meet a similar fate [as the Congress].”
Referring to Monday’s nationwide strike, the Bahujan Samaj Party chief said her party has its “own constitutional methods of protest”. She criticised reports of violence during the bandh, but also police action against the protestors.
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