HYDERABAD: The Bahujan Samaj Party would support the demand for a separate Telangana state if a debate on it took place in Parliament, party president and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati declared here on Saturday.Addressing her party’s cadre at a camp held near LB Nagar, she said that the BSP would make a Scheduled Caste leader as chief minister of Telangana if the party was voted to power. Giving reason for her belief that her party would come to power if the new state was formed, she said, “Feudal and upper caste people are very few in number while Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes are numerically strong in the Telangana region.”Recalling BSP’s support to creation of Uttarakhand state out of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati blamed the Congress and BJP governments for the delay in carving out a state of Telangana. “If Bahujans come to power at the Centre and in the state, the uncertainty will end and the issue will be settled at once.” Saying that the demand for Telangana had been pending for long, she said Dr BR Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram too favoured smaller states since bigger states were difficult to govern.Mayawati presented a road map for the party workers to strengthen the party in Andhra Pradesh from the grass-roots level. “I have no doubt that if you get the support of backward classes and SCs, the BSP too will come to power in AP like in UP.”Mayawati announced that whenever Assembly and Lok Sabha elections were held the BSP would contest all the seats from the state on its own. She directed the party’s state unit to launch an agitation against the increase in the prices of petroleum products. “We conducted a similar agitation in UP recently with success,” she said.On the issue of black money, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister said that if the Centre brought back the black money from foreign banks, poverty in the country could be eradicated to half the extent.
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