These days,Maya is ‘Gaddafi’ for SP

The SP workers,who hit the streets on Tuesday and forced closure of government offices,clashed with police in several areas,as part of its agitation programme. The party had given the call for paralysing the state machinery by enforcing closure of the government offices during its three-day agitation.

Reports of police lathicharge have come from several places,including Basti,Siddharthnagar,Kaushambi,Deoria,Bijnore and Saharanpur in which a number of party workers were injured.

In Ballia,protesters clashed with collectorate employees that led the police to use force to disperse them. Party leaders Ambika Chowdhury,MP Neeraj Shekhar and others were later arrested. SP Rajya Sabha MP Rashid Masood was arrested in Saharanpur while leading the protest march.

Senior party leader Azam Khan was also arrested in Rampur district along with several workers. He,however,said: “I and 1,500 party workers walked our way to the jail under the shadow of firearms ,as there were no arrangements made for the police vans. This underlines the fact that there is a complete breakdown of the Constitution in UP.”

“Mayawati is a dictator like Gaddafi and Saddam Hussain and like them she would have no place in the history,” he added. Khan has been lodged in a temporary erected jail. The party activities also tried to shut government offices in Meerut,Sitapur and others places. In Sultanpur,SP workers climbed atop a tower. In Lucknow,a group of lawyers and women members of the party damaged hoardings of Chief Minister Mayawati. They were later arrested by the police.

In Delhi,the tussle between SP and BSP led to disruption of the proceedings in the Lok Sabha briefly,with SP members demanding dismissal of Mayawati government. As soon as Speaker Meira Kumar concluded her reference on International Women’s Day,SP members began raising slogans demanding dismissal of the UP government,complaining that it was showing “dictatorial tendencies”. With the slogan shouting hampering the conduct of Question Hour,the Speaker allowed SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to make a brief statement. Yadav thanked the Speaker and Home Minister P Chidambaram for saving his honour following the “attempts to humiliate” him by the state government. The SP leader said he was disallowed from proceeding to Delhi to attend Parliament where he wanted to participate in the debate on railway budget.

“It was only after intervention from you (Speaker) and the Home Minister that the restrictions were lifted,” he said.

As Yadav was speaking,members from his party trooped to the Well demanding action against guilty state government officials and dismissal of the UP government.

At this point,BSP leader Dara Singh Chauhan claimed that Yadav was misleading the House and wanted the Home Minister to make a statement on the issue and place the facts. “We are getting the matter investigated thoroughly,” the Speaker said and asked Yadav to ask his party members to return to their seat. Following the assurances from the Speaker,the SP members returned to their seats. PTI inputs

State functioned as usual: DGP

Special DGP (Law and Order) Brij Lal on Tuesday said elaborate security arrangements were made and no untoward incident was reported from any part of the state. “Schools,colleges,commercial establishments and government offices functioned normally across the state,” said the police official. “There was no report of any disruption in rail and road traffic in the state due to the agitation.” The DGP further said 358 persons were arrested on the second day of the agitation. Of over 2,300 persons arrested on Monday,52 persons including the MPs were released on the same day. He said the released MPs Ram Gopal Yadav,Prem Das Katheria,Veer Pal Yadav and Mithilesh Kumar again courted the arrest today,the DGP said.

Govt on a misinformation campaign: SP

SP spokesman Rajendra Chowdhary accused the BSP government of unleashing misinformation campaign against the agitation by dubbing it as a flop show. “The SP had already announced the agitation would be totally peaceful,so the government claim about it being a flop show is deliberate misrepresentation of the facts,” he said.