“In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the assembly elections earlier this year, there had been tremendous pressure from the top leadership to arrange funds through our supporters in panchayats. At a meeting of the party in Lucknow last month, I tried to explain to Mayawati that it is becoming increasingly difficult to ask for money as our party was getting decimated and losing election after election”, said the senior BSP leader, Indrajit Saroj.
He accused Mayawati of removing him from all the posts over his refusal to raise funds for the party for the upcoming local body polls in Uttar Pradesh.
He claimed that the demands were unreasonable. For every assembly segment where the party was considered strong, they were asked to arrange Rs 15-22 lakh in addition to Rs 9 lakh from every constituency where they were weak. Later he decided not to get involved in fund raising and diverted himself in strengthening the organization. After this Mayawati told him that he was no more required for the party.
He was the BSP’s national general secretary and one of the senior most ministers in Mayawati’s cabinet while she was in power during 2007-2012. Saroj was a four-time MLA from Manjhanpur in the neighbouring district of Kaushambi, a seat he lost in the latest assembly polls which were swept by the BJP.