A Dalit's daughter should be made PM: Maya

Voicing her prime ministerial ambitions, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mawayati has said that a 'Dalit's daughter' should be made the prime minister to ensure the uplift of the backward and minority communities in the country.

"Unless the BSP government is in power both at the Centre and the state, the country and Uttar Pradesh will not progress," the UP chief minister said at an election rally in Ramipur village in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, on Saturday.

Mayawati told the gathering that only if they vote to make a "Dalit's daughter" as prime minister, will there be development of the backward classes and minorities.

"If you make a Dalit's daughter the Prime Minister, then UP will be famous in the entire world. If the BSP comes to power at the Centre, UP will occupy a special place," she said.

'Dr Singh is being misled'
Stung by Prime Minister's criticism of her government's track-record on development, Mayawati claimed Manmohan Singh was being misled on the issue by Congress state leaders as the party was nervous about BSP's growing support base.

"The Prime Minister is not at fault. He will speak what the Congress leaders in the state will tell him and he was given wrong information," Mayawati said.

Questioning the BSP government's performance on the development and law and order fronts, the prime minister had, at a rally in the district on Friday, alleged that its "failure" to implement the Central schemes was responsible for the dismal situation in the state.

The BSP supremo rejected Dr Singh's statement saying, "The Congress is very nervous about the growing support base of the Bahujan Samaj Party and therefore its leaders are resorting to giving misleading statements."

She said while the Congress was blaming her party for the lack of development in UP, it was the UPA government which had rejected her demand for a 80,000-crore development package, which forced her party to withdraw support to the alliance.