LUCKNOW, India, (AFP) - A regional politician who champions the cause of poor and low-caste Indians courted controversy again on Wednesday by appearing with a second garland of banknotes worth nearly 40,000 dollars.
Firebrand leftist Mayawati provoked a storm of outrage on Monday when she appeared with a garland stitched with 1,000-rupee (20-dollar) notes at a celebration of 25 years of her Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in northern Uttar Pradesh state.
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| Mayawati with money mala. Reuters. |
The ostentatious display led to noisy protests in the national parliament in New Delhi, calls for a police probe into where the money originated and condemnation from anti-poverty campaigners.
On Wednesday, a defiant BSP again festooned Mayawati, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, with cash and vowed to greet her in a similar manner in future.
"We today presented another garland of 1.8 million rupees (36,000 dollars) to the party supremo (Mayawati) collected by party units," state Public Works Minister Naseemudin Siddiqui told reporters.
"In future, wherever her programmes are held, we will welcome her with currency notes, if she permits us."Mayawati, a former schoolteacher known as the Dalit Queen for her defence of Dalit or low-caste Indians, has been criticised before for her spending. The 54-year-old, who has ambitions of becoming prime minister, likes to drape herself in diamonds and shiny silk saris on her birthdays in what she calls displays of "self-respect."
The Supreme Court in September forced her to halt the construction of Greek Parthenon-style memorials estimated to be cost 20 billion rupees (420 million dollars).
An already enraged opposition slammed the move on Wednesday. "I have not seen this kind of brazen corruption anywhere.
They should be open to a tax probe," said Digvijay Singh, a leader of India's ruling Congress party told reporters in New Delhi.
Garland worth Rs 50 million, say tax sleuths
NEW DELHI: Mayawati may have set her cops on a bee chase but the income tax department is sniffing up the curious case of the currency garland. While the BSP claims the garland of Rs 1,000 notes gifted to the Uttar Pradesh chief minister during the party's 25th founding day celebrations was worth Rs 21 lakh, taxmen say the value could run to Rs 5 crore (Rs. 50m).
Here's how. Preliminary investigations by the I-T sleuths reveal the garland weighed 65kg, all in Rs 1,000 notes. A wad of one hundred Rs 1,000 notes weighs around 120g. Taking out the weight of the thread in the garland, sleuths say the net mass of the currency "mala" would not be anything less than 60 kg. With inputs gathered from RBI, officials say it would take at least 500 bundles of Rs 1,000 denomination to make the garland.
Sources said I-T sleuths gathered information from BSP insiders on the composition of the garland while a team has been working with banks and other sources to track the money transaction and "sponsors" who, according to the party, "gifted" the notes.
Since all the notes used in the garland are believed to be new, said an I-T officer, it somehow belies the Dalit party's claim that its poor/rich followers contributed to the making of the mala.
Courtesy Times of India |
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