'I have never been in favour of caste-based rallies': Mulayam

Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav on Thursday said that he never favoured caste-based political rallies.

"There was one Brahmin Sammelan that I went to then I stopped going to these meetings, I have never been in favour of such rallies," he said, when asked to comment on the verdict of the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court banning holding of caste-based political rallies in Uttar Pradesh.

A division bench comprising Justices Umanath Singh and Mahendra Dayal, while hearing a PIL filed by a local lawyer Motilal Yadav, said: "Caste-based political meetings and rallies are against the Constitutional norms."

The ruling comes in the backdrop of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) recently organising Brahmin Bhaichara Sammelan in Uttar Pradesh's 40 districts.

The Samajwadi Party had also organised a similar event in Lucknow recently besides a Muslim Sammelan.

The petitioner, who submitted that there was a spurt of caste-based political rallies in Uttar Pradesh, said political parties were organising caste-based rallies in the name of different castes like Brahmin, Kshatriya and Vaishya etc.

Motilal Yadav submitted that while such events were causing damage to social unity and harmony, they were also vitiating the society which was against the spirit of the Constitution.