Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati, on Thursday, held a meeting with senior office-bearers of all the divisions of the party and asked them to reach out to the people and tell them about the policies of the party.

She said that it was a cause of concern that public interest and public welfare were constantly being affected by the ongoing political instability, deadlock and money power games to overthrow the government in several states, including recently in Maharashtra.

Mayawati also said that the BSP had not taken the decision to support presidential candidate Draupadi Murmu under pressure from any individual or party, but had decided to back her as Murmu belonged to Scheduled Tribe and support to her was part of the policy of Bahujan Samaj Party.

This decision is neither in favour of National Democratic Alliance nor against United Progressive Alliance, she said and added that the UPA did not even discuss with the BSP while choosing its presidential candidate.

“The situation is deteriorating day by day due to wrong policies and arrogant attitude of the government. To divert the attention of the people from the current situation, the government is adopting an arrest, jail, demolish house policy by repressive methods, which is completely wrong,” she said.

Mayawati said instead of appeasement, hate elements should be dealt with strictly. She said it was wrong to demolish the house of any one community and send its members to jail. “This is constitutionally and humanly unfair. Strict action should be taken against those elements who promote enmity. There should be no discrimination in this,” Mayawati said during the meeting.

Mayawati said there was unrest over recruitment in government jobs. “Now the youth are angry due to the recruitment of Agniveers on a temporary basis in the army,” she added.

She asked the government to reconsider the Agnipath scheme for short-term recruitment in the Indian Army so that the future of the youth could be secured.

Meanwhile, Mayawati asked party workers to get fully involved in the preparations for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and upcoming civic body elections in the state. She asked them to work at the ground level. At the same time, she said that all BSP workers should try to add more and more people to the party. Mayawati reviewed the work assigned to the office-bearers two months ago.

Sources said that Mayawati was working on the Dalit-Muslim formula for the 2024 Lok Sabha election after her party's Dalit-Brahmin caste combination failed to click in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. The move comes as the support of Muslims, considered the vote bank of Samajwadi Party, in the Azamgarh Lok Sabha bypoll has buoyed the BSP.  Party candidate Shah Alam aka Guddu Jamali polled 2.66 lakh votes (29.12 per cent of the votes polled in the constituency) in Azamgarh, finishing third behind Dharmendra Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and winner Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Immediately after the Lok Sabha bypoll result, Mayawati had called upon the Muslim community to support the BSP in the coming elections, saying her party had the strength to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BSP chief is likely to give important positions to Muslim leaders in the party organisation very soon and former minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui might also return to the party fold.

The Muslim bhaichara (brotherhood) committee will be tasked with winning over Muslim support for the BSP. Muslim leaders will be also told to convince their community that the BSP is not a B team of the Bharatiya Janata Party as projected by the Samajwadi Party and Congress.

Support to the BSP from smaller parties with influence among the Muslims during the Azamgarh Lok Sabha bypoll has given a momentum to Mayawati's plan to woo back the community, the leaders claimed. These smaller parties include All India Majlis-e- Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) led by Asaduddin Owaisi, Peace Party led by Mohammad Ayub and Rashtriya Ulama Council (RUC) led by Maulana Aamir Rashadi

The BSP did not field a candidate for the Rampur Lok Sabha seat as a gesture to Samajwadi Party leader Mohammad Azam Khan whose supporters had criticised the SP leadership for ignoring Azam Khan while he was lodged in jail, the BSP leader said.

The BSP leader said the party was also working to win the support of the extremely backward communities (EBC) that was considered its support base before the BJP made inroads in this caste bloc to win the 2017 and 2022 assembly elections as well as the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.