Political slugfest over clashes in Saharanpur
One person was killed and four others were injured on Tuesday as fresh violence erupted in Saharanpur, which has been witnessing inter-caste clashes since last month
LUCKNOW/NEW DELHI: The fresh caste violence in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh that left one youth dead sparked a political slugfest on Wednesday with BSP chief Mayawati putting the blame on the BJP government and a senior state minister accusing the opposition party of shedding crocodile tears.
One person was killed and four others were injured on Tuesday as fresh violence erupted in Saharanpur, which has been witnessing in- ter-caste clashes since last month.
The Yogi Adityanath government also came under attack from the CPI(M) which accused it of backing upper caste “perpetrators” of the violence and asked it to give up its “partisan” stand to ensure that law prevailed in Saharanpur.
As the caste clashes posed the first major law and order challenge for the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) government after it assumed office on March 19, Mayawati alleged that casteist forces in the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamse- vak Sangh have been given a free hand to misuse official machinery in order to harm social amity and brotherhood.
“After having damaged the communal atmosphere to gain political and electoral victory, the casteist, mischievous and criminal elements in the BJP and RSS are now bent upon unleashing casteist violence,” the Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) chief said in a party release issued in Lucknow.
During her visit to Saharanpur, she had accused the ruling party of failing to stop its own brigade from attacking weaker sections.
In the statement, she also alleged that the administration was hand in glove with BJP and RSS leaders. At a press conference on immunisation campaign in Lucknow, Siddharth Nath Singh, who is the state’s health minister and also the official spokesperson, returned the fire and targeted the opposition parties.
He said it would have been better if those “shedding tears” over the Saharanpur caste clashes had got themselves associated with the immunisation campaign, in an apparent reference to Mayawati. He, however, did not take her name. He said the state government has taken the Saharanpur incident very seriously and sent four senior officials with the instructions to return only after normalcy is restored.
The chief minister has made an appeal to the people to maintain peace and has also sought cooperation from opposition parties, he said. The CPI(M) condemned the “murderous” attacks on Dalits in Saharanpur and demanded that the state government take firm action against those allegedly assaulting the community members.