BSP stages 'show of strength' over remarks on Mayawati

The Mayawati-led party protested the disparaging remarks against her by a senior BJP leader Dayashankar Singh

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) today staged a show of strength in the heart of Lucknow to protest the disparaging remarks against party president Mayawati by a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Dayashankar Singh.

Singh, a newly elected Uttar Pradesh BJP vice president, has already been sacked form the party for six years and case registered against him at Hazratganj police station here.

Over the last few weeks, several prominent BSP leaders including party's leader in UP assembly Swami Prasad Maurya and a BSP founder member R K Chaudhary had left BSP alleging Mayawati had been selling tickets to candidates.

Besides, Congress recently had a road show in Lucknow when newly elected party's UP state president Raj Babbar and party's chief ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit had arrived here on Sunday.

In this backdrop, the agitation served a perfect opportunity to BSP to send a strong message to its opponents about its appeal amongst the dalits in UP in run up to the 2017 UP polls.

Dalits constitute about 20 percent of the UP population and have largely stood behind BSP and Mayawati over the years, although a chunk of these voters had deserted the party in 2014 Lok Sabha polls in favour of BJP and its then prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

Earlier, thousands of BSP cadres and leaders had started to arrive in Lucknow since morning to demonstrate near the UP Vidhan Sabha and BJP state party office near the main Hazratganj area.

A heavy deployment of police and security personnel had been made to avert any untoward incident; Thursday being a working day.

The BSP demonstrators not only burnt Singh in effigy, they shouted equally sexist and reprehensive remarkets to target him. Later, the agitation was called off around 1330 hrs after the police and district administration assured BSP leaders to arrest Singh within 36 hours.

UP Police teams had conducted raids at Lucknow, Ballia and Gorakhpur to arrest Singh, but without success.