Protests over Akhilesh’s detention continue to rock UP houses

LUCKNOW: The Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLAs disrupted the proceedings of the legislative assembly and legislative council for the third consecutive day on Thursday.

They are protesting against the denial of permission to party chief Akhilesh Yadav to board a chartered flight to Prayagraj to attend a students’ union function on Tuesday and subsequent lodging of cases against SP workers involved in protesting the issue.

Raising the issue, leader of opposition and senior SP leader Ram Govind Chaudhary said, political parties organising demonstrations to draw the attention of the state government toward various issues had been a norm and despite difference between the ideologies and policies, harsh action was never taken against such workers.

He urged speaker Hriday Narayan Dikshit to direct the state government to withdraw cases against SP workers who took to street after their party chief was not allowed to board a flight for Prayagraj.

Parliamentary affairs minister, Suresh Khanna, meanwhile, said that the SP workers attacked the policemen, indulged in throwing stones and damaging the public property during the demonstration. “The state government will not allow jungle raj to prevail in the state,” he said while informing the house that the Allahabad University as well as the district administration had requested the SP chief to postpone his programme in view of the tension on the campus.

Some MLAs rushed into the well of the house while demanding withdrawal of the cases, forcing adjournment of the house.

When the house resumed, Chaudhary said the state government was trying to suppress the SP-BSP after both the parties entered into a pre-poll alliance.

Meanwhile, heated exchange ensued between the BJP and the SP MLAs in the legislative assembly on Thursday after deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya thanked former CM Mulayam Singh Yadav for blessing Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a second term as PM in Lok Sabha on Wednesday.

While the SP MLAs raised slogans against the BJP, leader of the opposition, Ram Govind Chaudhary said, SP patriarch had simply expressed his feeling over the completion of the term of the PM. “There is general practice among the people to appreciate PM whose term was ending,” he said.

SBSP MLA ATTACKS STATE GOVT

The growing differences between the BJP and alliance partner Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) was out in the open on the floor of the legislative assembly when the SBSP MLA from Jakhania assembly seat Triveni Ram alleged that state government was following the policy of discrimination against the alliance partners. The proposal for the development of the constituency submitted by the MLA was changed by the state government.

Refuting the allegation, deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya said, the state government had allotted Rs 14.45 crore for the development of Jakhania assembly.HTC