Mayawati declares ex-IPS officer as CM face in Telangana

Hyderabad, May 7 (IANS) Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati on Sunday announced that party's Telangana unit President and former IPS officer R.S. Praveen Kumar will be the chief ministerial candidate of the party.

Addressing a public meeting here, she declared that if the BSP is voted to power in Telangana, Praveen Kumar will be the Chief Minister.

She said after taking voluntary retirement from the Indian Police Service (IPS), he had been working with missionary zeal to strengthen the party in Telangana. She hoped that he would take very good care of people like the BSP did in Uttar Pradesh when it was in power.

Mayawati appealed to people to bring her party to power in Telangana in the elections scheduled in next few months and also give the most number of Lok Sabha seats from the state to the BSP in the elections to be held next year.

She said if SCs, STs, OBCs, Muslims and other minorities and other weaker sections want a life of dignity and want to liberate themselves from oppression, they should bring the BSP to power.

Taking a dig at Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao for his call for amending the Constitution, the BSP leader urged people to throw Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) out of power. She said the government which is talking of changing the Constitution drafted by Babasaheb Ambedkar, should be thrown out of power.

Mayawati did not agree that BSP is weakening in Uttar Pradesh. "You may be wondering why the BSP is weakening in Uttar Pradesh but it is not weakening. As long as elections were held with ballot paper, our party grew in popularity but when EVMs were introduced, we lost our votes due to manipulation in EVMs," she claimed.

The BSP leader also alleged that in states where the BJP is growing strong, conspiracies are being hatched to split the votes of Dalits and weaker sections by floating smaller parties.

Mayawati also took potshots at Chief Minister KCR for trying to copy BSP to promise land for Dalits. "He promised 3 acres of free land but did not implement it," she said.

She also alleged that for the sake of votes, KCR named the State Secretariat after Babasaheb Ambedkar government building and installed his tallest statue.

She recalled that when Telangana people were fighting for their own state, the BSP was the first party to raise its voice in Parliament in their support and it also supported the Bill brought in Parliament for creation of the state.

Mayawati said that the weaker sections, Dalits, tribals, backward, youth and unemployed in Telangana were hit by irregularities in recruitment. She alleged that the state government is trying to suppress the voice raised against these irregularities.

The BSP leader also questioned the silence of Chief Minister over the release of a convict in the murder of slain Dalit IAS officer G. Krishnaiah.

She was referring to the release ofAformer MP Anand Mohan Singh by the Bihar government.

The gangster-turned-politician, who had instigated the bureaucrat's lynching in 1994 and was sentenced life imprisonment, was recently released from jail after Bihar government tweaked the rules.

Mayawati said BSP raised its voice against the release of the convict and demanded justice for the family of the slain officer.