Mayawati, who backed a peaceful Bharat Bandh called farmers to protest the Centre’s three agricultural legislation, said that the Uttar Pradesh government hiked cane support rates for “selfish” reasons ahead of the assembly elections. On Monday, the state’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president described the Yogi Adityanath government’s cabinet expansion as an attempt to mobilize voters based on caste and warned voters against such schemes.
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On Sunday, CM Adityanath promised a 25-rupee increase in sugarcane procurement rates in the state, a day before a Bharat Bandh planned by farmer organizations. The BSP’s leader wrote on Twitter, “For four and a half years, the BJP administration in Uttar Pradesh ignored the farmers here, refusing to raise the sugarcane support price, as I had pointed out at a meeting of the enlightened classes in Lucknow.
Now, right before the elections, they’ve remembered sugarcane farmers, demonstrating their egoism.” Mayawati further said that the BJP administration had failed to take actual actions to develop the classes to whom it had given representation in the ministry expansion, instead opting to halt the initiatives that her government had previously introduced for that reason.
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She stated in a linked tweet, “The current BJP government has made no tangible measures toward the development and elevation of their society, and most of the projects initiated by the previous BSP administration in their benefit have also been halted. It is a warning to these classes to be wary of the BJP’s hypocrisy.” On Sunday, Adityanath appointed seven members into his Council of Ministers, seeking to balance caste and regional interests.
