Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati has lashed out at her Delhi counterpart Sheila Dikshit for allegedly “diverting” huge amount of funds meant for Dalit upliftment to the Commonwealth Games.
Mayawati also questioned the constitutional validity of the Delhi government's decision to divert Rs 750 crore in this manner.
“The fund allocated by the government of India under the Special Component Plan, which is essentially meant for the welfare of dalits, cannot be diverted to another head; therefore it is matter of great concern that a Congress government has violated the rules and diverted such a hefty amount to meet the luxury requirements of Commonwealth Games,” Mayawati said in a statement Monday night.
“What has surprised me that the Delhi government has not cared to realise that such a huge amount of money could have been put to good use for the welfare of millions of dalits living in Delhi,” she pointed out.
The Planning Commission, she said, explicitly disallows diversion of funds out of the special component plan to any head other than that aimed at the welfare and upliftment of Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes.
Therefore, she added, any diversion of these funds to Commonwealth Games is a clear cut violation of the rules. Mayawati alleged: “The Congress-led regime’s action has further confirmed the party’s anti-Dalit psyche. As I have always maintained, the Congress Party has once again proved that it believes in only playing gimmick in the name of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar, with the sole intent of misleading the country's Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe population.”
She said: “The Delhi government’s action was a blatant reflection of how much the party was actually concerned about the well being of the downtrodden communities.”