Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati accused the media of adopting a “casteist and hateful approach” to harm her party and directed spokespersons to boycott TV debates.
In a series of tweets, the former UP CM claimed the media adopted a “casteist, hateful and despicable approach” to “harm” the Ambedkarite BSP movement during the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls on the instructions of “their bosses”.
“Therefore, all the spokespersons of the party – Sudheendra Bhadauria, Dharamvir Choudhary, MH Khan, Faizan Khan and Seema Kushwaha – will no longer participate in TV debates,” she tweeted.
‘Negative campaigns against BSP succeeded in misleading people of UP’
This comes after the BSP supremo on Friday blamed the “casteist media” for driving away Muslims from her party and said the fear of a “jungle raj” if the Samajwadi Party came to power made its other supporters vote for the BJP.
Mayawati further said it was the media’s aggressive propaganda showing the BSP as the “B team of the BJP” that drove away Muslim supporters and anti-BJP voters from it.“This decision by the Muslims harmed the BSP because the party’s supporters among the upper castes, backwards and other communities were made to fear that the ‘jungle raj’ will return to UP again if the SP is elected to power. That is why these communities went to the BJP,” she said.‘We should learn from our loss and come back to power’
The 77-year-old leader said that UP election results were opposite to the expectations of the BSP but told the party cadre that they should not be discouraged by it.
We should learn from it, introspect and carry forward our party movement, and come back to power, she said and cited the examples of BJP and Congress who had built on their respective party bases after their poll defeats and went on to form governments in Uttar Pradesh.
