Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati alleged that the recent controversy over Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya's remarks on Ramcharitmanas was blown up as both Bharatiya Janata Party and Samajwadi Party were trying to instigate religious frenzy to help each other in the vote-bank politics of Uttar Pradesh.
She also ridiculed the SP for taking no action against party leader Swami Prasad Maurya who had recently made objectionable remarks on Ramcharitmanas penned by great sage Goswami Tulsidas.
Maurya, a prominent Other Backward Class leader in Uttar Pradesh, started the controversy on January 22 when he alleged that certain verses in the Ramcharitmanas "insulted" a large section of society on the basis of caste and demanded a ban on those verses.
In a series of tweets on Monday, the BSP president and former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh said the BJP's designs at creating new controversies for political gains was well known, but the SP was also doing the same.
"The BJP's political identity of creating new controversies for narrow political and electoral interests, spreading ethnic and religious hatred, creating hysteria, and religious conversions etc. are well known. But the same political colour of the SP, under the guise of the Ramcharitmanas, is sad and unfortunate," Mayawati said.
Questioning the silence of the SP leadership over Maurya's remarks, she said it indicated a collusion between the SP and the BJP.
"Despite the controversy over the SP leader's remarks against Ramcharitmanas and then the BJP's reactions to it, the silence of the SP leadership has made it clear that there is a collusion between the two parties so that the upcoming elections can be polarised on Hindu-Muslim hysteria instead of burning public issues," Mayawati said.
The BSP chief said both these parties had "communalised" the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections and warned against such hateful politics.
"The SP-BJP made tactical understanding in the last general assembly election in Uttar Pradesh and complemented each other by making it highly communal through religious frenzy due to which the BJP came to power here again. It is necessary to avoid falling prey to such hateful politics," she added.
It may be mentioned that top seers from Ayodhya -- Mahant Raju Das of Hanuman Garhi temple and Paramhans Das of Tapasvi Chhavni -- have declared a bounty for anyone who beheads Maurya for insulting the Sanatan Dharma and asked the BJP government to take strict action against such leaders.
Maurya, however, looks defiant and has said, "I will continue to oppose the conspiracies of insulting tribals, Dalits, backwards and women in the name of religion. The way an elephant is unperturbed by barking dogs and does not change its path, I too will not change my stance towards getting dignity for those (tribals, Dalits, backwards and women)."
Not only that, Swami Prasad Maurya also made a controversial statement against seers and saints, calling them monsters. Lucknow police have already registered a case against Maurya in the above controversy.
