Mayawati, chief of the Bahujan Samaj Party, angrily walked out of the Rajya Sabha today declaring she would quit if she was not allowed to speak on what she called frequent attacks on Dalits in Uttar Pradesh. A senior leader of her party SC Mishra told NDTV that his boss has not handed out an empty threat. She is adamant that she will resign from the upper house of Parliament today, he said. It was expected that during the ongoing session, the Opposition party will raise a range of issues including, cow vigilantism, unrest in Jammu and Kashmir, and the India-China standoff in Dokalam.
Meanwhile, the first day of the Parliament's monsoon session was adjourned soon after the obituary references were read as respect for dead members of the parliament, and the oath was administered to the new ministers. Outside Parliament, Mayawati said she had been asked to limit her speech to three minutes. "If I am not allowed to speak right now, I will resign right away," said the furious BSP leader, who draws her core support from Dalits. She alleged that she had tried to visit Saharanpur to reach out to Dalit families, but her efforts were foiled. "All this is happening because the BJP is in power. I am supposed to get Z-plus security, but there was no such arrangement," Mayawati said. ALSO READ:
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