Comparing Mayawati with the Mughal emperors, Tandon alleged that under her, criminals had hijacked the party.

“I had taken a personal initiative for installing Mayawati as the chief minister in 1995 to instill a sense of confidence and pride among Dalits that someone from their ranks can rise to the highest office of the state. But she has disappointed the people,” said Tandon.

“Nobody had visualised a situation where the Dalit movement would create a leader like the Mughal emperors,” he said.

Tandon, who was participating in the general debate on the budget in the Assembly, is the only BJP leader with whom Mayawati had a personal relationship. Until a few years ago, she used to tie rakhi to Tandon. Tandon’s criticism of the chief minister, and its stridency, was therefore unexpected.

Later, in the lobby, several members complimented Tandon for his speech. “Rs 700 crore has been provided in the supplementary budget for three memorials, while a population of 40 lakh in Lucknow has been left at the mercy of god,” he said. “Not a penny has been provided for drinking water and improving the power distribution network in the city.”

The Dalit movement, he said, had created leaders like Dr Ambedkar and Kanshiram, but there can be no place for the most hated kind of feudalism as practiced by the present day Dalit leaders of UP.

He alleged that the party of the Dalits had been hijacked by people like Satish Mishra, Akhilesh Das and mafia-turned-politicians Mukhtar Ansari and Arun Shankar Shukla alias Anna.

Rubbishing the BSP claim that it had abolished jungle raj and established the rule of law, Tandon said: “What message does the BSP want to give to the society by fielding most dreaded mafias and criminals as candidates for the next Lok Sabha polls? Are they the new source of inspiration for the society?”

Speaking about the degeneration of the BSP, Tandon said: “In Brahmin sammelans organised by the ruling party, Satish Mishra claims it is ‘Brahmin Samaj Party’, while in the hoardings put up by Akhilesh Das, BSP is described as ‘Best Secular Party’,” said Tandon.

“There are now three Bahujan Samaj Parties in the state and it is difficult to identify the real BSP.”