Maya changes mind about special force for statues
The Mayawati government, on Friday, withdrew the ordinance and the draft bill for the special force to guard statues and memorials. A decision to this effect was taken at a Cabinet meeting here on Saturday after the governor B.L. Joshi reportedly did not sign the draft ordinance and held back his assent to the bill too.
The state Cabinet has now decided to entrust the security of parks and memorials to home guards. The draft bill had been sent for governor’s assent in February this year after being passed by both houses of the state legislature. The ordinance sent later to Raj Bhawan met a similar fate.
The state government then took a decision in April to set up a special force, comprising ex-Army men, to guard the parks and memorials. The official spokesman on Friday said that since tourists visiting the parks and memorials comprised women and children and women security personnel were not available for the proposed force, women were not available for this force; hence it was not found practical to set up a force without women.
The state government will now deploy home guards at these parks and memorials and a special force of armed home guards will be created for this purpose.
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Maya dares her rivals to declare assets
Age Correspondent
Lucknow
May 28: UP chief minister Mayawati, on Friday, challenged the leaders of all major political parties to declare the assets before and after joining politics.
She also demanded that the names of leaders who had deposited money in foreign banks should also be made public. The chief minister demanded a CBI probe into the assets of Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Addressing a press conference here on behalf of Ms Mayawati, BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Misra said that Ms Mayawati had made public all the details of her assets and properties.
“Ms Mayawati has disclosed her income, assets and properties with the appropriate authorities and has also paid the taxes that accrue on it. The sources of income have also been declared. In fact, she is the only politician to have done so. She is being unfairly targeted by rival leaders and a section of the media but no one says anything about other politicians,” he said.
Mr Misra further demanded that the names of those 50 white-collared persons whose names had been sent to the Indian government from Germany, should be made public and efforts must be made to get the money back into the country.
The BSP leader said that after forming government for the fourth time in 2007, Ms Mayawati had not taken single penny from her supporters as gift.
“The increase in income, as shown in her affidavit, is because of the escalation in the value of the properties,” he explained.
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