SP BREAKS SILENCE, BATS FOR WOMEN’S SAFETY

LUCKNOW : The Samajwadi Party (SP), which was earlier aloof towards the wrestlers’ protest over allegations of sexual harassment against WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, now seems to have softened its stance since Sunday, when several wrestlers were detained by the Delhi Police when they tried to march towards the new Parliament building in Delhi demanding Singh’s arrest.

Though its ally, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), had been vocally supporting the wrestlers since the controversy erupted, the SP’s aloofness was attributed to Brij Bhushan’s previous association with the Akhilesh Yadav-led party and his admission that he had been close to the SP and the Yadav family.

But now, the SP had started supporting the protesting wrestlers without talking about the WFI chief.

On Tuesday, when the protesting women wrestlers announced that they were heading to Haridwar to immerse their medals in Ganga, Akhilesh Yadav tweeted in Hindi: “This time, Mother Ganga has called the daughters.” On Sunday, he had tweeted: “Today’s incident made it clear that all the BJP’s slogans on women’s safety and dignity were hollow and were only to grab women’s votes #MurderOfDemocracy”

SP national general secretary Shivpal Yadav tweeted in Hindi: “Whatever may be the arguments, intention or conclusion; the scene is unfortunate... country’s daughters with the tricolour.” Shivpal posted the picture of a woman wrestler and a Tricolour she held fallen on the ground and police dragging her.

SP leader Swami Prasad Maurya tweeted: “No sooner the ‘Sengol’ sceptre was installed, the BJP is moving ahead towards monarchy. Mr Prime Minister while you were getting your coronation done, world- conquerors daughters of our country were getting beaten up by the police. They are brave daughters who have won gold, silver, bronze medals at Olympics and made the country proud worldover. So please stop insulting the daughters.”

“Autocracy won’t be tolerated,” RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary wrote in a tweet in Hindi.

So far, the SP has not demanded any action against Brij Bhushan or attacked the BJP over him.

SP’S ALOOFNESS WAS ATTRIBUTED TO BRIJ BHUSHAN’S PREVIOUS ASSOCIATION WITH THE PARTY AND HIS ADMISSION THAT HE HAD BEEN CLOSE TO THE SP AND THE YADAV FAMILY.