Mayawati Quits Rajya Sabha After Being Disallowed To Speak On Dalit Issues

New Delhi:  As per the media reports the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Mayawati here on Tuesday resigned from the Rajya Sabha hours after she had angrily walked out of the Upper House of Indian Parliament claiming that she was disallowed to speak on Dalit issues.

She reportedly handed over her resignation to the vice-president of India Hamid Ansari who is also the chairman of the Rajya Sabha. While elaborating on the reasons for her resignation she purportedly said that “I simply wanted the Rajya Sabha Chair to pay attention to atrocities against the less fortunate sections of the society, especially Dalits. And as a representative, when I’m not being allowed to speak for them, I have no choice but to resign.”

The political observers are dubbing her move as an attempt to rally core Dalit support base behind her and re-establish herself as the sole leader of the community after a debilitating defeat in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections earlier this year. Her party could win only 18 seats with the BJP seizing power by winning more than 300 of the state’s 403 seats and making major inroads into UP’s significant Dalit vote.

There is also speculation that Mayawati could seek to contest a Lok Sabha by-election in UP to return to Parliament as she gets down to the task of rebuilding her party in the state in time for the 2019 general election. Her Rajya Sabha term in the Upper House ends in less than a year and re-election will be a tough task, after her party’s poor performance in UP, media reports said.

Moreover, other opposition parties also rallied their respective support for Mayawati with the Congress party accompanying her in the walkout as Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the BJP has a mandate to rule UP and alleged that the BSP chief was attempting to score political points and not speak for Dalits, notes NDTV in its report.

“When Mayawati tried to talk, she was told that we have got the mandate. We did not know the BJP has got the mandate for massacre of minorities and Dalits,”  Ghulam Nabi Azad from Congress party, who is Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha reportedly said.

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