Mayawati to review `wrong decisions’

Decision on presidential nominee after consultations

NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, who holds the key to the presidential elections, on Friday said she would "reveal her cards" after consultations within her Bahujan Samaj Party.

"We are a democratic party, not a dictatorship. The issue of presidential nominee is important. I have to consult others on it," she said to repeated questions on the subject at her first press conference here after taking over the reins of Uttar Pradesh for the fourth time, with a majority of her own.

Ms. Mayawati, who later called on United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi, said her "outside" support to the United Progressive Alliance Government at the Centre would continue.

In the evening, she held a meeting of her party’s national executive and coordinators here. A meeting of MPs and MLAs is scheduled to be held in Lucknow.

At the crowded press conference, Ms. Mayawati chided journalists for asking "silly questions" or for being grossly incorrect in their election forecasts on her party’s performance.

She parried questions she did not want to answer. But on some issues she was assertive — that law and order in Uttar Pradesh would be her priority and she would reverse all "wrong decisions" of the Mulayam Singh Government.

To a question — asked in reference to her party’s Rajya Sabha member, S.C. Misra, who has been given Cabinet rank — whether she would appoint a Deputy Chief Minister, Ms. Mayawati told a questioner: "Nobody has thought of such a thing in my party. This is your discovery, which is why you people went wrong in election forecasts. Now at least, the media should do atma-manthan [introspection]."

Asked whether she would go to Nithari village in Noida, which witnessed serial killings of children, she shot back, "I was the first one to visit Nithari. You don’t even know that. Were you sleeping?"

Refuting charges of political vendetta, she said her government was only looking at those decisions, taken during the Mulayam Singh regime, which flouted rules or were anti-people.

The allotment of a Special Economic Zone to Reliance was referred to the Centre on the recommendation of a panel set up to review such projects.

Ms. Mayawati will call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday.