Akhilesh Yadav Over UP Protests

Lucknow:

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday slammed the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) saying that it is doing “politics of hate” on instructions of RSS, its parent organisation.

In a statement, Mr Yadav said, “It is not hidden that the BJP’s politics is of hatred and division of the society conducted on the instructions of its parent organisation RSS.” He said it is the same politics that is behind incidents of “horrific unrest” that is wrecking the state, with a large community hurt by the words of a BJP member.

“The BJP government has not taken any concrete steps to resolve this unfortunate dispute and the crisis is taking a terrible form,” he said.

The SP chief said BJP’s attitude still does not appear to be “just”.

“How is it just that the person whose statement disturbed peace and drew flak from across the world, gets security, while Ram Rajya is being crushed by a ‘demonic bulldozer’?” the leader said.

The former Chief Minister said that our culture, religion, and constitution, do not allow the BJP government to bulldoze someone’s house or shop without any statutory provision, or arrest innocent people, or to blame a particular community.

Mr Yadav said that Uttar Pradesh stands ashamed before the whole world under BJP rule, as the people’s democratic right to peaceful protest is being ignored.

“It is the responsibility of the state government to maintain law and order in which it has proved to be a complete failure. In order to hide his failure in every field, the Chief Minister keeps on misleading the people by fabricating false stories,” Mr Yadav said.

He demanded that the state governor takes immediate cognizance of the situation and order strict action against the government’s arbitrariness and misuse of power, in favour of peace and mutual trust in the state.

Uttar Pradesh has been rocked with protests across its several districts over remarks against Prophet Mohammad made by now-suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma.

First such major protest took place in Kanpur on June 3, which saw the demonstrators trying to shut down markets and clashing with people with hurling of petrol bombs and stones.

Since last Friday, similar incidents of violent protests have been witnessed in eight districts of the state.

So far, 316 people have been arrested in connection with the violence with registering of 13 FIRs, police said in a statement on Sunday.

The cases have been lodged in nine districts of the state, Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said in the statement.

Meanwhile, the authorities resorted to bulldozing of many buildings which, they claimed, belonged to the accused or their relatives or associates.

The state bulldozed properties in Saharanpur, Prayagraj, and Kanpur district drawing opprobrium from opposition parties and civilians alike, which termed the move extra-legal.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)