Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayavati clarifies in Lucknow her government’s stand on MK Gupta’s murder. (Below) The slain engineer’s wife Shashi Gupta in Auraiya on Wednesday. (PTI)

Lucknow, Dec. 25: The murder of a government engineer allegedly by a Bahujan Samaj Party MLA yesterday was a spinoff from Mayavati’s diktat to party MLAs and officials to raise Rs 3 lakh each for her birthday celebrations, BSP sources admitted today.

“This is a routine instruction issued by Mayavati every year though the sum may vary. But some MLAs, taking advantage of the chief minister’s order, collect more than what they actually donate, pocketing the rest,” a party MLA said requesting anonymity.

This, he said, creates the kind of situation that led to the murder of M.K. Gupta, executive engineer in the state public works department, in Auraiya.

The money is usually collected from government contractors. So, the overseeing engineers are pressured to release the payment even before the project is complete, so that the contractors can pay up, said sources in the Uttar Pradesh Engineers Association (UPEA), an organisation of government engineers.

“The contracts for roads and bridges go to either BSP legislators or persons nominated by them, and the ‘donations’ are the way the politicians get their cut,” UPEA president A.A. Farooqui told The Telegraph.

“The engineers feel helpless and insecure because they are coerced to release payment even when the work remains incomplete.”

Gupta, supervising the Ambedkar Gram Projects in Auraiya, is said to have stood up to pressure from MLA Shekhar Tiwari to prematurely clear payment of several crores so the contractor could “donate” Rs 50 lakh.

Mayavati today claimed that this year only BSP “co-ordinators” were asked to collect donations, and MLAs, MPs, Lok Sabha candidates and ministers had been spared.

BSP sources, however, said the party expected to raise Rs 16 crore this year through its 216 MLAs and officials such as district presidents and secretaries. Some sources said part of the donated sum could go to Mayavati herself.

The money sought from a contractor depended on how big the project was, and the one Gupta was overseeing was worth Rs 10 crore, a source said.

“Tiwari surely didn’t intend to donate the entire Rs 50 lakh to Mayavati,” said an MLA who has now left the BSP to join the Samajwadi Party.

Senior BSP minister Nasimuddin Siddique called a meeting of party MLAs today and asked them to stop “covert extortion” in the name of donating to the party, BSP sources claimed.

The party celebrates January 15, Mayavati’s birthday, as Arthik Sahacharjya Divas (Financial Assistance Day).

BSP sources said all party MLAs and officials were asked to buy party coupons at Rs 3 lakh each and hand the money over to the BSP headquarters in Lucknow or to the party’s district co-ordinators by December 31. They were all to sign a declaration saying they were “donating” the money to the party.

The mechanism was put in place after Mayavati faced legal suits asking how she had amassed her huge personal property (she declared assets worth Rs 52 crore last year). The BSP chief would earlier accept “donations” without much formality.

The tradition of informal “donations”, party sources said, began on the eve of Mayavati’s birthday in 2003. She claimed that BSP founder Kanshi Ram had instructed her to raise money on her birthday since the party was unable to win elections by itself because of lack of money.

Mayavati today said her party was indeed run on small donations from ordinary party workers “but we don’t go to anyone and everyone for donations”.

She said her reason for accepting donations was to reduce over-dependence on industrial groups.

“Opposition parties like the Samajwadi Party and the Congress get money from industrial groups and forget the interests of ordinary people. My party is not under the control of business groups,” she said.

A bus of the state transport department set on fire during a protest in Auraiya. (PTI)

BJP leader and former minister Om Prakash Singh said: “Mayavati is now a prisoner of her own culture of extorting money. If MLAs are forced to extort donations, no one can stop Auraiya-like incidents.”

Political sources said other parties too carried out such extortion, but a little more discreetly. Samajwadi, BJP and Congress MLAs are often asked to start a membership drive and get small “donations” from the new members.

For example, a Samajwadi Party MLA was allegedly asked to recruit 1-2 lakh members and get each to donate Rs 2. But the MLA just raised Rs 2-3 lakh from contractors and handed the money over, showing fake new memberships.

“The BSP MLAs, who have become leaders overnight, are more brutal in their ways,” a police officer said.