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A TOP INDIAN politician lashed out at WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Tuesday, saying he is either insane or being used as a tool of her opponents for releasing US Embassy cables that describe her as a corrupt megalomaniac.
An October 2008 cable called Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, a powerful leader of the nation’s bottom caste untouchables, a ‘virtual paranoid dictator’ who once sent a private jet to Mumbai to pick up a new pair of sandals.
The cable said Mayawati had institutionalized corruption throughout India’s most populous state, charged potential candidates $250,000 to run for Parliament on her party’s ticket and was obsessed with becoming prime minister. Similar allegations have been often been made by her political opponents too, but she has consistently denied them.
Mayawati told reporters the Wikileaks accusations were “malicious, incorrect and obscene.”
“From this it appears that the owner of WikiLeaks has either gone mad or else this person has played into the hands of parties who oppose us and deliberately want to tarnish the image of our party and government,” said Mayawati, who uses only one name.
She called for Assange to be sent to a mental asylum either in his home country of Australia or in Uttar Pradesh, and called news reports about the cables as ‘dirty politics’ and an attempt to besmirch India’s untouchables, or dalits.
Assange responded quickly and equally sharply.
In a statement broadcast by at least two Indian news channels, he said Mayawati should “admit her error and apologize. 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,” NDTV reported him as saying.
Mayawati has been criticized for excessive displays of wealth and power in a state rife with poverty. Last year, she was photographed inside a gargantuan garland made of 1,000 rupee ($22) notes estimated to total more than $1 million. She has also spent millions on statues of herself and other dalit heroes, while the roads and health infrastructure of the state lie in tatters.
The US Embassy cable painted her as a cosseted megalomaniac.
It quoted local journalists as saying that Mayawati employed nine cooks and two food tasters. She demanded personal security equivalent to a head of state and had a private road built between her home and office that was cleaned every time her extensive motorcade used it.
She once forced a state minister to do sit-ups in front of her as punishment for arriving without an appointment, the cable quoted the journalists as saying.
A separate cable said her chief of staff told U.S. officials that she had a “penchant for personal corruption and strong authoritarian streak.”
In condemning the cables, Mayawati seemed unaware they were written by US diplomats, instead assigning the blame for them directly to Assange, as well as to her rivals in the Bharatiya Janata Party, one of several parties challenging her rule in elections next year.
In denying the report she sent a jet to fetch sandals: “Maybe if this BJP leader knows about my sandals then he must have accompanied the owner of WikiLeaks to go in the special plane and buy me my sandals.”
The US cable did not say where the allegations about the sandals came from.
Mayawati also denied she employed nine cooks. “I feel that maybe they’re (opponents) cleaning dishes in my kitchen and that’s how they know this.”
The cables also said Mayawati had cowed the press; many reporters thought their phones were tapped and feared losing their jobs if they were critical of her rule. She rarely addressed the media, the cables said, and when she did, she did not take questions, a practice she continued during Tuesday’s press conference.
In his response, Assange said: “there is no question that the documents are official papers from the US embassy. The allegations within them are made by US diplomats in their private communications back to Hillary Clinton. If chief minister Mayawati has a problem with the contents of these communications, she needs to take it up with Hillary.”
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Vincent Brown is an excellent interviewer. No wonder many politicians wish to avoid him e.g. Gerry Adams.
Enda Kenny is scared shitless of Vincent Brown .
Actually at times he comes across as a bully. Especially last week when he was supposed to interviewing an ex British Army officer who served in Afgahnistan on the security situation in the ME and proceeded to verbally assault and berate him for decisions taken by his govt. that he had no input into whatsoever. It was obvious he had been set up for an ambush by Browne. Shameful stuff.
considering all the British Army ambushes in Ireland or “terrorist attacks” as they called them at the time then was this not Karma from Mr. Browne ?
Northern Ireland – Proof the U.N. is an over-paid waffle shop for the bewildered !
Enda Kenny is scared of his own reflection……
Some say his own reflection doesn’t even like him…
And what will happen in the end is that Browne’s show will suffer for his ambush tactics, as he’ll struggle to get high profile guests. Instead he’ll be stuck interviewing clowns from People before Profit or the AAA.
Scipio, do you just complain about everything?
Vincent Browne has reduced himself to the level of an political Jeremy Kyle. No serious politician will ever go on his show unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Skippy is bang on the money, he’s already the level where his staple guests are irrelevant nutters like Joe Higgins, Declan Ganley and that PBP fool in the checked shirt.
Yet he still draws in big names in Irish politics and culture, draws in over 160,000 viewers in one of the worst slots and is good enough to be compared to Jeremy Paxman by the Guardian. Jon Snow of Channel 4 News is often called a bully, yet he’s still one of the most highly respected British journalists and Channel 4 has few problems drawing in highly significant people for interviews, even when the interviewees are at their most vulnerable. Basically, your claims have nothing to support them
You know his show is online right? I can actually open it up in my browser and sit here asking myself who are these people. Some of them are only there because they have twitter accounts.
It’s kinda like government backbenchers isn’t Ron ? …Who are these people all they have is Party Support …….
Has he had Twink on yet? It’s only a matter of time.
Yeah Twink would certainly qualify as one of those leading lights of Irish culture that ‘Free Gaza’ was talking about.
No she sticks to R.T.E. – just like Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour – Sinn Fein were banned from R.T.E. during the British Army “Terror with terror” (their own words) campaign until Paddy decided to call of the Grand National and we got to see all the posh British crying because their horseys couldn’t run around a field …
That was funny – and no bomb at all, at all ……
Scipio – Anyone who opens a comment with ‘you are an idiot’ , has clearly already lost the argument .
Except if they’re obviously addressing an idiot.
Scipio, completely misquoting me yet again. Never said anything about the leading lights of Irish culture. I simply said that Vincent Browne consistently has big enough names when it comes to the Irish context. I don’t know half the people on Frontline, the Late Late Show, Question Time or Newsnight most of the time so that’s hardly a measure of the presenter’s/interviewer’s credibility and skill. There are over 220 politicians at a national level in Ireland, plus almost a thousand at local level, never mind all the other politicians and activists across the island.
Ron mentioned the “irrelevant nutters” that appear on his show, yet we all know who Joe Higgins and Declan Ganley are, what they stand for and we actually pay some sort of attention to what they say or do, whether we take them seriously or not.
The fact that Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour and the lovely Twink all stick to RTE supports the point that Skippy was making Dermot.
Section 31 and ‘horseys’ are not relevant to this conversation..
Brown completely demolished Joan when she was on the show with Joe Higgins. She has never been on it since!
Nor has anyone else of consequence.
Seriously do any of you think Kenny or any of his likes would have the neck to go on Vincent Browne ..I don’t ..he is actually excellent at not letting his “guests” off the hook …id love to see Kenny.try to worm his way out of his broken election vows
This is just more proof of his legend status .
Answer the question to quote ..Vincent
Vincent would eat Enda for breakfast and Enda knows it.
Big fan of him. And he can have a bit of craic too.
Brown a big bully
he’s fantastic takes no shite .
I am so sick of fools calling people irrelevant just cause they’re not in the big four parties. Its toxic to democracy to regard deviation from mainstream politics as laughable or irrelevant. And of course there’s always this feeling its being done to stamp out opposition to those mainstream policies through snide laughter and ridicule
I agree with Sean bent above about the main parties but I would say 3.
The vincent Browne’s and George Hook’s of this country like the status quo and are scared shitless of Sinn Fein coming to power.
They knock them absoultely every chance they get.
Gerry, hook doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Vincent Brown. He’s a rugby commentator and I see very little intellect.
UTV ireland is fast approaching. TV3 and VINB be afraid, be very afraid.
Enda would be afraid of Fionnán Sheehan.
Yeah the same few politicians on his show like thomas byrne going on about t’frozen chips. Bloody hell.
That was a very important insight into the cluelessness of the economic policies of Fianna fail – that and the fact that irish people had been calling for it for years while they made Frozen Pizzas in Galway for years !
Vincent for president
J-J-JUST ANSWER THE BLOODY QUESTION
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