Hitting out at the Bharatiya Janata Party over the rise in attacks on caste and communal lines in the country, Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati on Thursday said such incidents not only defamed the country but also embarrassed the Prime Minister.
Taking to Twitter, Mayawati said, “Why do the BJP-ruled state governments allow such crimes when they let down the entire country and the PM too feels ashamed.”
“As of now, police and government officials are also at the receiving end of this new problem,” the BSP president said.
Mayawati’s reaction came after the alleged lynching of Tabrez Ansari in the BJP-governed Jharkhand and some other similar incidents elsewhere in the recent past.
Ansari was thrashed by a mob for alleged theft on June 18 and a video had emerged which purportedly showed that he was forced to chant Jai Shri Ram and Jai Hanuman in Jharkhand’s Saraikela Kharsawan district.
In another tweet, the BSP chief criticised the Uttar Pradesh government over the state’s poor performance in the health sector as indicated by the Health Index report released by the NITI Aayog.
“The NITI Aayog report that UP is the most backward state in the country on the issue of people’s health is most embarrassing for the government,” Mayawati said.
“UP has been placed at the last spot (in the Health Index) in providing health facilities to the people. What is the benefit of having a double-engine government of BJP at the Centre and state. No point in spending crores of rupees if people have to live in a hell,” the BSP president tweeted.
The UP government was quick to respond to the NITI Aayog report and blamed the previous governments for the state of affairs in the health sector.
“We have inherited certain things from the governments that came before 2017. We inherited their failure and tried to improve it as much as we can. We did make many improvements,” claimed UP Health Minister Sidharth Nath Singh, while defendng the Yogi Adityanath government for the poor Health Index.
According to the NITI Aayog’s second round of Health Index, Kerala occupies the top slot in terms of health performance among large states followed by Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, whereas Uttar Pradesh and Bihar remain at the bottom.
