Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati on Tuesday called the Congress “unreliable” and “untrustworthy” after six of her party MLAs switched over to the grand-old party in Rajasthan.

Mayawati, in a tweet, said, “By poaching BSP MLAs, the Congress has proved that it is an unreliable party. This is a breach of trust even when the BSP was lending its unconditional support to the Congress government in Rajasthan.’’

The BSP president said: “Instead of fighting with its arch rivals, the Congress always damages the parties that have helped and supported it. Hence, Congress is against Dalits, STs and OBCs and has been non-serious about the rights of backwards.’’

She also accused the grand-old-party of being against the principles of Babasaheb Ambedkar, “which is why he had to resign from the post of the country’s first law minister’’. 

“The Congress never let Babasaheb go to Lok Sabha and neither was he awarded the Bharat Ratna. This is very shameful and sad,’’ she said.

On Monday night, all six BSP MLAs wrote to state Assembly Speaker CP Joshi to merge the Legislative Party with the Congress. MLAs Rajendra Singh Gudha, Jogendra Singh Awana, Wajib Ali, Lakhan Singh Meena, Sandeep Yadav and Deepchand said they were merging their legislative party with the Congress. The development came ahead of civic body polls and bypolls to two assembly seats.

Meanwhile, in another development, after the Allahabad High Court stayed the notification to include 17 OBC groups in the Scheduled Castes list, the BSP president on Tuesday said such government decisions were guided by total selfish political motives but affected the entire society.

She said the move was “most unfortunate”. “The news of the high court staying the forcible declaration of 17 OBCs as Scheduled Castes in Uttar Pradesh is naturally in limelight today. Such decisions guided by total selfish political motives do not affect any party/government but the entire society. Most unfortunate,” Mayawati tweeted in Hindi.

Staying the notification on Monday, the high court directed the state government to file its reply in three weeks on a petition against its decision to declare 17 Other Backward Classes as SCs. The petition stated that the Constitution has empowered the Centre to make such amendments and include a particular community in the Scheduled Caste list. Hence, such a decision by a state government was in violation of Article 341 of the Constitution, it said.

According to the petitioner, the Uttar Pradesh government issued a government order in June to include 17 communities of the OBC category in the SC list. Kahar, Kashyap, Kewat, Nishad, Bind, Bhar, Prajapati, Rajbhar, Batham, Gaur, Tura, Majhi, Mallah, Kumhar, Dheemar and Machua sub-castes were among the 17 OBC groups.