Lucknow : Fifty BJP MPs from the state staged a dharna here to protest against “the failure of law and order, prevailing power crisis and increasing crimes against women” under the Samajwadi Party (SP) government.
The parliamentarians later submitted a memorandum of their demands to Governor Ram Naik and sought his intervention as the guardian of the Constitution.
Leading the protest, state president of the party Laxmikant Bajpai told media that parallel dharnas were also organised in all districts barring those which are going for by-polls Sep 13.
The MPs, while slamming the Akhilesh government for the failing law and order situation, also rapped it for the disruption of communal harmony and the grim power scenario in the state.
Party leaders accused the SP government of working to appease the minorities and neglecting others. They alleged that even as BJP MPs were trying to redress the problems in their respective constituencies, the district administration, at the behest of the ruling party in the state was not cooperating.
Pointing out that the power scenario was turning more grim with every passing hour, the Bharatiya Janata Party MPs said instead of getting cracking at the state level, the government in UP was busy in blaming the NDA government at the centre.
The party leaders also raised issues like failure of the state government in providing relief to the drought-hit farmers, payment of arrears of cane growers, among others.
Regretting that the state government had failed to rise to the expectations it had kindled 2012, the MPs warned the state government to do a course correction else it was headed for an electoral waterloo in the 2017 assembly polls.
Among the MPs who took part in the sit-in were Mahendra Nath Pandey, Jagdambika Pal, Rajesh Pandey, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Krishna Raj, Ashok Dohre, Rajveer Singh, Kaushal Kishore, Anju Bala and Ram Shankar Katheria.