AKHilesH’s men run amoK in u.p.
If vote bank politics and caste equations are preventing Akhilesh Yadav from taking action against the accused leaders it is also tarnishing his image.
Setting men ablaze, beating government employees, dragging journalists behind motorbikes and playing Taliban at village panchayats are some of the vacation hobbies that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s men and ministers have developed.
These ‘hobbies’ however, could prove disastrous in the 2017 elections for Akhilesh Yadav. Since the past one month, the young UP chief minister has been caught in a strange Catch 22 situation.
UP minister Ram Murti Varma, earlier accused in cases of rape and murders, has not been arrested even a fortnight after he got his men and the cops to set a journal- ist on fire in Shahjahanpur. The journalist, who battled for survival for almost a week before he died on June 8, managed to record his dying declaration on video in which he categorically blamed the minister for setting him on fire.
The issue has snowballed into a major controversy with a Press Council of India team visiting Shahjahanpur to gather facts. Opposition leaders are also making a beeline for Shahjahanpur as the minister remains untraceable.
The fear of losing Kurmi votes in a state dominated by OBC politics has made the Chief Minister wary of taking action against the accused minister who is a strong Kurmi leader.
Another UP minister, Kai- lash Chaurasia, who beat up a transport officer last week, is also safe because he belongs to Varanasi and represents the OBC community in the constituency.
A senior party leader Totaram Yadav, who enjoys a ministerial rank, left everyone aghast when he declared a few days ago that rape was always done with the consent of the women. No action has been taken against him because he happens to be a senior Yadav leader and the Samajwadis cannot afford to irk their own community.
SP MLA Vishambhar Nishad reportedly got his men to set a 62-year-old man on fire in Banda district because the farmer resisted forced acquisition of his land. The police have not taken any action in the matter till now. The MLA belongs to the Nishad community that has supported SP since the time Phoolan Devi became MP.
Another SP leader Iqbal, who earlier held a post equivalent to a minister, made waves in the media when he and his men beat up government employees at a toll plaza. Investigations later revealed that he was a master in forgery. The vehicle that was seized during the incident, bears a Haryana registration number shows that the name of the owner is ‘Whatzapp” and the father of the owner is named ‘zero’. Iqbal was finally arrested this week but enjoys a comfortable stay in jail.
Shailendra Agarwal, a broker who claimed that two former DGPs in the
Akhilesh Yadav had salvaged his reputation to an extent after the Muzaffarnagar riots and the subsequent Bollywood tamasha in Saifai by going into an overdrive on the development front. But incidents in the past one month have made him hit rock bottom.
Akhilesh regime had a fixed rate for promotions and transfers in the police force and he brought the ‘clients’ for them, is also a Samajwadi Party leader in Agra.
He told the cops that he had gifted four Fortuners to the wife of one DGP and had purchased 80 luxury cars which were gifted to other officials.
Agarwal, now lodged in Agra jail, has been given a LED TV along with a set top box so that he can entertain himself with movies and music.
If vote bank politics and caste equations are preventing him from taking action against the accused leaders it is also tarnishing his image.
Akhilesh Yadav had salvaged his reputation to an extent after the Muzaffarnagar riots and the subsequent Bollywood tamasha in Saifai by going into an overdrive on the development front.
But incidents in the past one month have made him hit rock bottom.
A senior SP minister admitted that these incidents are causing greater damage to the image of the Akhilesh government that their dismissal would have caused to the party.
“Sooner or later, the aggrieved parties will move court that will order action against the accused. It would have been better if the Chief Minister had taken action against these people and replaced them with other members of their community. Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed has not to give any official directions about organising events for International Yoga Day on 21 June. The PDP has distanced itself from the event as the Jamaat-e-Islami J&K has declared that performing yoga is a mortal sin for Muslims. A senior administrative official said that the government decided not to give any official direction as the day was coinciding with the Holy Month of Ramadan and they feared that it may cause a backlash. State Education Minister Nayeem Akhtar has also refused to give any direction to state-run education institutions to participate in Yoga Day.