The war of words over the Rae Bareli coach factory land hotted up on Wednesday with Chief Minister Mayawati on Wednesday hitting back at Sonia Gandhi accusing her of enacting a ‘drama of going to jail’ and worrying only about Rae Bareli and Amethi and not Uttar Pradesh.
A day after Gandhi visited Rae Bareli and accused Mayawati government of putting hurdles in development projects in her constituency and the state, the Chief Minister said the Congress president and her party were doing all this to gain ‘political mileage’ ahead of Lok Sabha elections.
"Congress party workers brought their president to Rae Bareli who did a drama of going to jail without any reason and returned to Delhi yesterday," Mayawati said at a press conference.
"Congress is worried only about Rae Bareli but I am worried about the whole of Uttar Pradesh," she said, while countering Gandhi's charges after her government cancelled a land allotment for the railway coach factory.
The Chief Minister said, "if we wanted to display the power of the state administration, then we would not have allowed her (Gandhi) to conduct a road show in Rae Bareli and would have arrested her."
But "we had only asked her not to hold a public rally in Lalganj following tension there. The prohibitory orders were not imposed anywhere else in the district," she said.
Mayawati announced a 'maharally' to apprise people about the ‘impediments created by the Centre’ in developmental schemes.
On alleged protests by farmers on the acquisition of their land for the factory, Mayawati said that she had constituted a committee under Principal Secretary Netram to inquire into objections of the farmers that will submit its report to the government within three days.
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