Lucknow, September 6
Chief Minister Mayawati today sarcastically offered to keep the founder of whistleblowing website Wikileaks in the Agra mental asylum.

Without naming Julian Assange Chief Minister Mayawati said, “The owner of Wikileaks appears to have gone mad or he has joined hands with our opposition parties to malign my government."

“If there is no space in the mental asylums of his country he can be accommodated in the Agra mental hospital” she quipped. The outburst was in response to news reports appearing in a section of the media regarding her close aides - party Rajya Sabha MP and party national general secretary Satish Mishra and Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar - who supposedly spoke to the US diplomatic sources based on which a variety of Wikileaks stories are appearing in the media.

Among them is CM Mayawati reportedly sending the state plane to collect a pair of her favourite sandals from Mumbai, her reported personal corruption, her employing ‘food tasters’ to guard against poisoning and even her having poor English language skills.

Speaking to the media in her office today, Mayawati described the reports as “baseless, shameless and mischievous, which were meant to defame me and my party on the eve of Assembly elections”.

Standing by her aides whose names have cropped up in the Wikileaks, Mayawati asserted that they had “honest and clean images” and she would not fall in the trap set by these leaks. “The Wikileaks has tried to defame them but I would further strengthen their position in the government and party” she said referring to Mishra and Singh.