Lucknow, March 7 (IANS): Uttar Pradesh was likely to witness a wave of hooliganism as the Samajwadi Party (SP) had been voted back to power in the State, outgoing Chief Minister Mayawati said today shortly after submitting her resignation.
In her first comments after her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was routed in the State on Tuesday, Mayawati told reporters that the State would now taste "SP culture" as had become evident in the last 24 hours.
Citing incidents of violence in Jhansi, Firozabad and Sambhal where SP workers indulged in violence Tuesday, Maya said that very soon the state would remember "her good governance" and repent the verdict that they gave in favour of the SP.
Blaming the Congress and BJP of conniving to oust her from power and get a SP government, she also accused the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of "harbouring a negative mindset" against her and the State government. She also blamed the media for "unnecessarily hyping irrelevant issues".
Asked whether scandals like the rural health scam had impacted on the party, the outgoing Chief Minister answered in the negative and said that knives would be out for the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as well as the media when people faced the hooliganism of the SP brass.
In Mayawati's view, Muslims voted in large numbers for the SP and Mulayam Singh Yadav and this probably cost her the job. She, however, underlined that her Dalit vote bank was intact and numbers would have slipped further had that not been the case.
Mayawati said 70 percent of Muslim votes went to the SP as the Congress appeared weak.
While the SP got an emphatic verdict of 224 seats in the 403-member assembly, the BSP was reduced to just 80 seats, down 126 from the 206 it got in the 2007 assembly polls.
