PM Narendra Modi trying to hide failures behind Indo-Pak tension, says Mayawati

LUCKNOW: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Sunday accused the Narendra Modi government of trying to hide behind the Indo-Pak tensions and extract political mileage out of the air strikes on terror launch pads in Balakot in Pakistan.

Addressing party office-bearers and leaders at a hurriedly called meeting in the state capital, the BSP leader said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was whipping up the issue of air strikes to "hide the failures of the last four years".

"It is not hidden from the people of Uttar Pradesh and the country on how miserably the Central government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party has failed in providing good governance and in addressing problems facing the country", she said, while exhorting party activists to fan out and inform people on how the issue was being "misused" by the ruling party to hide its failures.

At the meeting, called for stock-taking the party`s preparedness ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the four-time UP Chief Minister said that leaders and workers of both the BSP and the Samajwadi Party (SP), with which it has an alliance for the general elections, should be alert about such machinations of the BJP.

Mayawati is also learnt to have taken feedback from party workers about her alliance with one-time arch-rival SP.

While the SP will contest 37, the BSP will fight it out in 38 seats in UP.