Two more arrested for hurling tomatoes, eggs at minister’s house

LUCKNOW:Two more people were arrested on Monday for hurling tomatoes and eggs at the house of Uttar Pradesh minister Om Prakash Rajbhar who had said that Rajputs and Yadavs consumed more liquor than others.

“Two more arrests have been made today. These are Pooja Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav. Both the arrested persons are associated with Samajwadi Chhaatra Sabha (SCS),” station house officer, Gautampalli police station, Vijaysen Singh said.

The SCS is the student wing of the Samajwadi Party (SP). The officer said a case was registered against them under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The CCTV footage was being examined and more arrests were likely to be made, the SHO said.

“Yesterday, three persons were arrested. They were Lal Bahadur Yadav, Amit Kumar Yadav and Pramil Yadav,” he said. Rajbhar had made the remarks in Varanasi on April 27 while arguing against drinking.

“The maximum blame is put on Rajbhars, but the maximum liquor is consumed by Yadavs and Rajputs,” the minister had said. “This is their ancestral business,” he was heard saying on television.

He had also said that people from the his own Rajbhar community and all other castes also drink.

Rajbhar, who heads the backward classes welfare portfolio in the Uttar Pradesh cabinet, is a leader of BJP ally, Suheldev Bharatiya Party.

Reacting to the minister’s remarks, SP president Akhilesh Yadav had tweeted, “It is people who use intoxicants, not any caste.” In his tweet, he asked, “Why only liquor?”

He said campaigns should also be run against the consumption of other intoxicants, listing “ahankar” or ego

along with ganja, charas and tobacco. Rajbhar has courted controversy earlier with his criticism of the performance of the Yogi Adityanath government in the state.