Pm Orders Probe Into Veracity Of Charges Against Up Govt
Prime Minister I K Gujral has asked the Union home ministry to consult Uttar Pradesh Governor Romesh Bhandari to verify the charges of persecution levelled against the Mayawati government by Union defence minister and Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Gujral plans to convene a meeting of Union home minister Indrajit Gupta, Mulayam Singh and Romesh Bhandari to discuss Yadavs complaints and Maya-watis response, according to a government source. The Prime Minister has been under pressure from Mulayam Singh and CPI (M) general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet.
The Centre received a three-page reply from Mayawati on Sunday in which she justified her action in some criminal cases, stating that most Samajwadi Party activists were criminals. The Chief Minister has also dubbed some of Yadavs charges as false.
Gupta wrote to Mayawati after Yadav made a complaint at the last meeting of the United Front steering committee. The decision to call a meeting with the Uttar Pradesh Governor was taken by the Prime Minister at a meeting last week, convened to discuss Yadavs complaints against the Mayawati government. Yadav, Gupta and Surjeet were present at the meeting.
The meeting was stormy. Yadav complained against Gupta for not coming to his aid at a time when his party activists and leaders were being targeted by the UP government. Gupta is said to have defended himself by saying that Yadav had given him the list of his complaints only a day before and could not expect action without them being examined first.
Yadav was, however, full of praise for Surjeet who he said had always come to his assistance. He cited an instance when a senior SP leader was surrounded by the
Provincial Armed Constabulary of UP government in his hotel room and not allowed to come out to campaign in the last weeks by-elections on the pretext that there was a threat to his life in the city.
It was Surjeet who immediately swung into action and not the home minister. Surjeet immediately went to the Election Commissioner and got the leader released. Yadavs contempt for Gupta was made very clear by him by similar comments during the course of the discussion.
Several incidents narrated by Mulayam Singh were extremely serious in nature, a source said.
The Prime Minister intervened to suggest that the governor of UP should be consulted by the home ministry more often and should be taken into confidence in determining the ground situation in the state. It was then decided to call a meeting in which Bhandari would also be present to discuss the situation in UP.
Romesh Bhandaris proximity to Mulayam Singh Yadav has been a sore point for his detractors in the state when it was under central rule. Bhandaris open defiance of Union home minister Indrajit Gupta and the latters comments that the state was heading towards chaos and distruction had led to a major crisis in the H D Deve Gowda led government early this year. In her letter to Indrajit Gupta, Mayawati has reacted sharply to his letter in which he had drawn her attention to Mulayam Singhs complaints that his party workers were being falsely implicated and even killed at the behest of the BJP-BSP government in the name of drive against criminals. Mayawati has sought to turn the tables on Gupta by providing the criminal history of most of those who figured in the list supplied by Gupta as SP workers. Guptas letter had provided a list of 51 SP leaders and workers killed after Mayawati was installed as the chief minister. These killings took place between March 22 and May 15 this year.
Interestingly, several of those claimed by Mulayam to be his party men, have switched their loyalties either to the BJP or the BSP.