By IANS,
Lucknow : Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav Friday blamed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati for the death of a party activist in police firing on Gujjar protestors in Firozabad district.
Addressing a press conference at the party state headquarters here, Yadav said: “The victim was a Samajwadi Party activist who was participating in a peaceful Gujjar demonstration led by the local party district president Azeem Bhai and party MLA Hari Om Yadav.”
He said, “The manner in which Mayawati’s policemen opened fire on the peaceful demonstrators clearly reflected their barbarous intentions.”
He said “The firing continued for more than two hours – to be precise between 10.45 a.m. and 12.50 p.m.”
Comparing Mayawati to her Rajasthan counterpart Vasundhara Raje, Mulayam Singh said, “Mayawati is behaving just like the Rajasthan chief minister who belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).”
He warned, “But I can assure you that this act of the Mayawati administration will cost her dear.”
He demanded stern action against those responsible for giving orders for the firing. “We will not get cowed down by such intimidation tactics and continue to fight against injustice,” he asserted.
Yadav’s Man Friday Amar Singh, who was also present at the press conference, took on Mayawati for ordering a probe into the allotment of a residential plot to him during the Mulayam Singh regime, allegedly through official manipulation.
Refuting the charge that he was given a prime plot after initial allotment of a house meant for Economically Weaker Section (EWS), Singh claimed, “I never apply for an EWS house and let me tell you, the allotment was made well before I joined the Samajwadi Party.”