Mayavati, Sonia: War of words

Lucknow, Oct. 15: Mayavati today accused Sonia Gandhi of enacting a jail drama over the Rae Bareli rail factory and announced a rally there to counter charges that she had blocked the project.

The Uttar Pradesh chief minister, who cancelled the factory’s land allotment last week, said the date for the “mega rally” in Sonia’s Lok Sabha constituency would be announced soon.

The aim will be to “clear the confusion in the minds of the people” of Rae Bareli, Mayavati declared, a day after Sonia said she was prepared to go to jail to protest the cancellation.

The chief minister suggested the remarks were nothing but theatrics. “Congress workers brought their president to Rae Bareli, who did a drama of (being ready) to go to jail without any reason and returned to Delhi.”

Mayavati said the Congress chief’s “wish to go to jail would have been fulfilled only if her government had been undemocratic”. “We have never been autocratic. We allowed her to hold a rally at Greater Noida last month against the firing on farmers in August.”

The chief minister had yesterday imposed Section 144 — bar on more than four persons gathering in public — in most of Lalganj, where the factory was to come up. She had also refused Sonia permission to hold a rally, changed the route she was to take and turned Rae Bareli into a fortress with police deployment.

Mayavati accused Sonia and her son Rahul of being concerned only about Rae Bareli and Amethi. “The obsession of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi about Rae Bareli and Amethi is well known but they should look beyond. I as a chief minister have to think of the entire state.”

Mayavati said the Congress should focus on less developed areas, where land would not be a problem. “Why does the Congress not set up a factory in Poorvanchal and Bundelkhand? Let the party come up with proposals for 50-60 factories in other places, we will give them land.”

The BSP chief said the government had followed all democratic norms for the October 11 cancellation. Principal secretary Net Ram had spoken to farmers in Lalganj on October 7 and submitted a report three days later saying they weren’t happy with the allotment, she said. “This gesture proves my government has never given preference to politics.”

Mayavati asked the Congress why it had thought of laying the foundation so many years after the project was announced, suggesting the move was initiated with an eye on the Lok Sabha elections.