Lucknow, May 13 (IANS): Social activist Anna Hazare has laid bare his anti-Dalit mindset by not including even one member from the community on the anti-graft Lokpal Bill drafting committee, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati said Friday.
Addressing a special function to mark the completion of four years of her government here, she said: "Just as the Congress-led central government displayed its anti-Dalit approach by not caring to include a Dalit in the Lokpal Bill draft committee, so did Anna Hazare, by not bothering to have a Dalit on his civil society panel, which reflects his anti-Dalit mindset."
According to her, "the exclusion of Dalits from the draft committee as a whole is a betrayal of the entire Dalit population of this country".
"While I welcome the various anti-corruption movements across the country, I am intrigued about the intent behind Anna Hazare's move to use Uttar Pradesh as a launch pad for his movement.
"Even though Anna Hazare belongs to Maharastra, where there is no dearth of scams, and likewise, there are scams in several other states too, yet he launched his anti-corruption campaign in UP, where not a single scam has taken place," the chief minister said.
"It appears that some people in Anna Hazare's civil society were politically motivated and they had chosen UP as a battleground for their campaign only under the influence of certain political groups.
"No wonder, the much hyped anti-corruption campaign is fast getting reduced to an anti-Dalit exercise," she said.