The engineer, MK Gupta, was allegedly murdered by BSP legislator Shekhar Tiwari on December 24 for refusing to contribute money for the chief minister's birthday celebrations.

Replying to the motion of thanks by Governor TV Rajeswar, Mayawati said: “It was a well-planned conspiracy by the Opposition to link the murder with my birthday, as it wanted to reap political dividends ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.” “The victim's family is satisfied with the investigations being carried out by the state police and have given it in writing that they were not in favour of the probe being handed over to the CBI,” she said. “Raking up the issue again and again in the Assembly and outside was politically motivated.”

Rebutting the charges levelled by the Opposition during the debate, Mayawati said, “Opposition parties lack issues to criticise the government. They are, therefore, making wild allegations to influence people.”

The chief minister also condemned the unruly behaviour of the Samajwadi Party (SP) during the Governor's address, saying that it was regrettable that he was prevented from addressing the Assembly. “It is clear that the SP has a problem with the Congress over the alliance. Rather than disrupting the proceedings of the House, it will be better if both settled their issues outside,” she said.

Instead of giving any specific reply to the charges of the Opposition leaders on various issues, Mayawati dismissed them as “concocted” and “baseless”. She rather chose to read out the list of achievements of her government in the last two years. Most of the 50-minute speech was devoted on listing the failures of the previous SP led government.

On the law and order front, Mayawati said “jungle law prevailed in the previous regime and the SP has no moral right to comment on the current law and order situation.” In the last two years of the BSP regime, 432 policemen have been dismissed from service and 7,203 suspended for dereliction of duties.