By IANS,
Lucknow/New Delhi : The Congress Monday alleged that the Mayawati-led Uttar Pradesh government was nervous over the party’s protest against the “deteriorating law and order situation” and said its workers were standing up to pressure of the state administration, which banned its march scheduled for the day.
“If we do not have right to protest there is no right at all. The government is nervous. It does not want people on streets,” Congress leader and union Water Resources Minister Salman Khurshid told a news channel.
Referring to party workers pushing police barricades in Lucknow Monday during the party’s “nyay march”, he said they have a moral and political obligation to fulfil.
“The workers are standing up to pressure…our leadership in the state is capable of giving a reply,” he said.
Khurshid, an MP from Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh, said Congress workers were on the streets to ensure that people came out against the state government.
As party workers protested in Lucknow against a spurt in crime in the state, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi met a Dalit girl who was blinded by her assailants after she resisted rape in Uttar Pradesh.
Gandhi arrived at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, where the girl was shifted from Uttar Pradesh for treatment, at 10.45 a.m. and spoke to her as well as her family members.
The 14-year-old girl was attacked by two men June 14 in Gursahaiganj in Kannauj district, about 180 km from Lucknow.
During the protest in Lucknow, Congress leaders said about two dozen cases of alleged rape or attempt to rape had been reported in the state over the past two weeks.
Uttar Pradesh Congress spokesman Akhilesh Pratap Singh said party workers embarked on the “nyay march” after holding a rally Monday near Charbagh railway station.
“Party workers pushed police barricades to show that power of people is bigger than police,” he told IANS.
Akhilesh Pratap Singh said the march was held over the spurt in crime against women, murder of doctors and police action against farmers at Bhatta-Parsaul village in Greater Noida.
“The response of the government to the deteriorating law and order situation is not satisfactory,” he said.