LUCKNOW: Slamming Wikileaks owner Julian Assange for comments on her, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati charged that he was a lunatic and said his country’s government should send him to a mental asylum and if need be, he could be admitted in Agra mental hospital.
Without taking Assange’s name, she rubbished the recent WikiLeaks expose about her and the Uttar Pradesh government, and described its contents as ‘untrue’, ‘baseless’, ‘figment of imagination’ and ‘malafide’ questioning its very validity.
Making light of the expose that quoted two of her close aides, she dubbed it “handiwork of some mentally deranged” person. The whole matter smacked of the conspiracy hatched by her political rivals, she said.
She said the government of Assange’s country should send him in a mental asylum and if they had no space to accomodate him in lunatic centres there, she offered he could be admitted in the Agra mental hospital.
After Ms Mayawati’s news conference, Assange, in reply to a questionaire by Times Now TV channel said that Mayawati should admit her error and apologise.
He said,”Mayawati has betrayed rational thought. The question is, has she also betrayed the Dalits? There is no question that the documents are official papers from the US embassy.
These papers have been proven the world over, including by the aggressive persecution of our people by Washington.
If chief minister Mayawati has a problem with the contents of these communications she need to take it up with Hillary. I ask that Mayawati admit her error and apologise.” Asserting that asylum in India is welcome for him, Assange said, “Should she fail to do so, she is welcome to send her private jet to England to collect me, where I have been detained against my will, under house arrest, for the last 272 days. I would be happy to accept asylum, political asylum, in India–a nation I love. In return, I will bring Mayawati a range of the finest British footwear.”
Addressing a press conference, Ms Mayawati said it looked like a deliberate attempt to malign the image of her government and party in view of the coming Assembly polls in the state.
“The WikiLeaks reports have quoted BSP general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra and Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh who according to me are men of high integrity and loyalty,” she said.(UNI)