BSP vice president behaves rudely to Rahul Gandhi; Mayawati dismisses him

What are the qualifications to be a Prime Minister? Does your parents’ nationality play a role in being a PM?

Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati today removed party national coordinator Jai Parkash Singh for saying that Congress president Rahul Gandhi cannot become prime minister because of ‘his mother’s foreign origin’.

BSP on Monday had projected its president Mayawati as the prime ministerial candidate for next year’s general election, and said that Congress president Rahul Gandhi could not aspire to the post due to “his mother’s foreign origin”.

Addressing the first workers’ conference to discuss the party’s strategy for the Lok Sabha election, BSP national co-ordinators Vir Singh and Jai Prakash Singh said it was “high time that Mayawati became the prime minister of the country”, and that she was the only one who could take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“After playing a pivotal role in making HD Kumaraswamy the chief minister of Karnataka, Mayawati has emerged as a powerful politician. She is the only ‘dabang’ (fearless) leader who can stop the winning chariot of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in the electoral battle,” Jai Prakash Singh said.

READ ALSO: Jignesh Mevani to team up with BSP Mayawati for 2019 elections?

“She is not only a towering Dalit leader but also has the support of all the communities. Time has come when she should be made the PM after the 2019 Lok Sabha election,” he added.

On Gandhi, who is widely believed to be the Congress’s PM face, Singh added: “Rahul looks more like his mother than his father. And his mother is a foreigner, thus he can never be PM”.

Singh said the BSP chief had more credentials than Congress president Rahul Gandhi to become prime minister. “Mayawati is a grassroots leader who has served as Uttar Pradesh chief minister four times,” he said.

Mayawati told the news agencies “I came to know about BSP national coordinator Jai Prakash Singh’s speech in which he spoke against the ideology of BSP and also made personal remarks against the leadership of rival parties. As it is his personal opinion, he has been removed from his post with immediate effect.”

Reacting to the BSP leaders’ comments, BJP Rajya Sabha member and head of party’s media department, Anil Baluni said: “Anyone can dream of becoming PM even if they do not have a single seat in Lok Sabha. A leader with 44 seats like Rahul Gandhi is dreaming of becoming the PM and a leader like Mayawati with no seat is also dreaming of becoming the PM.”