india

Updated: May 12, 2017 08:29 IST

Expelled national general secretary of the BSP Naseemuddin Siddiqui on Thursday described party chief Mayawati as a gangster who leads a number of criminal gangs while she hit back labeling him “a habitual blackmailer”.

“On her direction, members of her gang kill people, set houses afire, beat up rivals, break their cars and issue threats as well,” he alleged. She had also hatched a conspiracy to kill a senior BSP leader, Siddiqui said at a press conference, a day after he and his son Afzaal were expelled from the Bahujan Samaj Party for alleged anti-party activities.

A belligerent Siddiqui said that on Mayawati’s direction, members of her gang set afire the house of former UP Congress Committee president Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who is now cabinet minister in the BJP government.

A number of BSP leaders who challenged her authority were beaten up and tortured by members of her gang, he said.

Once a confidant of the BSP chief, he said Mayawati had demanded Rs 50 crore after the assembly election. He released audio tapes to support his charge. In the tapes, the BSP chief is directing him to fulfill her orders and collect money from the candidates. Mayawati is also heard directing him to deposit the fund collected during the membership drive.

“When I failed to fulfill her demand she expelled me from the party,” he said. “I joined BSP in 1984 and served it since then. I am aware of all the illegal investments made by Mayawati and her brother Anand. I will release more proof of her illegal properties to the media soon,” he said.

He also accused the party’s national general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra of amassing illegal assets.

“Within five years there was Rs 200 crore increase in the value of Mishra’s property. Hutments of 150 Dalit families were razed for the construction of Mishra’s palatial bungalow. Mayawati’s younger brother Anand was a class four employee. He owns property worth Rs 2,000 crore. Mayawati has also invested illegal money in immovable properties in various parts of the country,” Siddiqui claimed.

On Wednesday, Mishra had accused Siddiqui of investing in ‘benami’ property.

Siddiqui refuted the charges. “In the Taj Corridor case, the CBI had given me a clean chit and the state vigilance department had also given me clean chit in the disproportionate assets case, the probe into which was ordered by the Lokayukta,” he said

He said he has urged chief minister Yogi Adityanath to set up an inquiry against Mayawati and take appropriate action.

Siddiqui also accused Mayawati of running down Muslims after the debacle in the assembly election. She said “Muslims are traitors. BSP has fielded 99 Muslim candidates but failed to get their vote. I told her that due to SP-Congress alliance, Muslims were confused and there was division in their votes.”

A few hours after his press conference, Mayawati also addressed journalists where she rubbished Siddiqui’s charges and described him as a habitual blackmailer and held him responsible for the party’s poor show, especially among the Muslims in the recent assembly elections.

The tapes of her conversation that the sacked BSP leader made public were ‘doctored,’ she said.

Mayawati said she had made Siddiqui in-charge of western Uttar Pradesh during the assembly election but party workers complained that he was blackmailing them and minting money in the name of the party.

“Workers in the April 19 party meeting told me how he (Siddiqui) was blackmailing them by taping their conversations. He misused his proximity to me and projected himself as Number 2 in the party among the workers,” she said. She said Siddiqui had sidelined genuine party workers and was promoting only his business partners in the party.

“I don’t want his money or his properties. But poor people, who you have robbed to amass this wealth want an account of their money,” she said reacting to the charge that she had demanded Rs 50 crore from Siddiqui.

She refuted Naseemuddin’s allegation of her calling Muslims as ‘traitors’, saying the Muslim Community has full faith in her. She added that she was neither aware nor Siddiqui ever told him that he had a daughter.

Earlier Siddiqui had alleged that he could not attend the burial of her daughter because he was election agent of the BSP supremo and she had refused to let him go back to his native village to perform the last rites of her daughter