Mayawati questions Congress plan to honour Kanshi Ram with Bharat Ratna
LUCKNOW [Maha Media]: Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati on Saturday questioned the Congress over its proposal to confer the Bharat Ratna on BSP founder Kanshi Ram if it comes to power at the Centre.India Business News
In a post in Hindi on X, Mayawati urged party workers across the country to remain vigilant against what she termed attempts by other political parties, particularly the Congress, to weaken the BSP.
She said that despite being in power at the Centre for several years, the Congress never accorded due respect to B R Ambedkar, and sought to know how the party could now propose to honour Kanshi Ram, whose birth anniversary will be observed on Sunday.
“The Congress never gave due honour to Babasaheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar — the messiah of Dalits and the principal architect of the Constitution — nor did they ever confer upon him the title of Bharat Ratna… How can the same party now honour Kanshi Ram,” she said in her post.
Her remarks came a day after a proposal was passed at a ‘Samvidhan Sammelan’ organised by the Congress in Lucknow, stating that the party would confer the Bharat Ratna on Kanshi Ram if voted to power.
“This Congress party, while in power at the Centre, failed to declare even a single day of national mourning upon the passing of Kanshi Ram. Similarly, the then-ruling Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh also did not announce state mourning,” she said.
She further said several organisations and political parties claiming to represent the Dalit community — often acting as pawns in the hands of bigger political parties — are constantly engaged in using Kanshi Ram’s name for political gains while trying to weaken the BSP.
“Currently, all these parties are employing various tactics to undermine and weaken the BSP. Therefore, his (Kanshi Ram) followers and supporters must remain alert, especially against the Congress, whose anti-Dalit ideology and mindset made it necessary to form the BSP,” she said.
The BSP supremo also appealed to party workers to ensure the success of programmes organised across the country, particularly Uttar Pradesh, on March 15 to mark Kanshi Ram’s birth anniversary.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said that if Jawaharlal Nehru had been alive, Kanshi Ram would have been made a chief minister from the Congress.
Nehru, India’s first prime minister, died in 1964, while Kanshi Ram emerged on the political scene with the formation of backwards-championing BAMCEF in 1978, and later bolstered his position with the formation of the BSP in 1984.
