Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati said here that her party would contest all assembly seats in Jharkhand.
Addressing a rally Saturday to mark the launch of BSP's election campaign, at the Shaheed Maidan here, Mayawati said: 'If BSP were to form a government in this state, you can rest assured that you will also witness a transformation of this state in the same manner as I have done in Uttar Pradesh.'
She sought to blame the backwardness of Jharkhand on 'misrule by different political parties, particularly the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).'
Mayawati added: 'Successive governments have only used the huge population of tribals and minorities in this state only as a vote bank.'
Accusing successive governments of having 'not done anything to take this state out of its economic and social backwardness', the BSP supremo said: 'Poverty and unemployment had driven some people of this area to turn into Naxalites.'
She however sought to add: 'If BSP were to come to power here, I would make it a point to bring these misdirected Naxalites back to the mainstream of development.'
The five-phased assembly polls will start in Jharkhand Nov 25.
