By IANS
Lucknow : Stung by the mass dismissal of 6,000 policemen recruited in the last two years of his regime, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav Friday fired his first major salvo against state chief minister Mayawati.
He alleged the dismissals of the policemen were “engineered”, and accused the chief minister of using the sack order as a means to “mint money”.
Asked what could have been the chief minister’s motive behind the move, Mulayam Singh said: “It was quite evident from her action that she intends to fill her coffers through fresh recruitment that would naturally follow the sacking.”
As if to substantiate his charge, he went to the extent of accusing the present government of “making at least Rs. 30 million per hour.”
Terming Mayawati’s regime as “extortionist” and “dictatorial”, the former chief minister claimed that it is “worse than the days of emergency in the ’70s”. He gave several examples where, he alleged, “the unconstitutional approach was blatantly visible.”
“I have enough evidence to prove that the inquiry officer simply carried out the diktat issued to him and that too within the deadline given to him,” he claimed.
“The departmental probe on the basis of which dismissals were carried out was a farce and an eyewash as the inquiry officials had been told beforehand what they were required to do,” Mulayam Singh told reporters at a press conference.
Alleging that the complaints were engineered by none other than the chief minister herself, Mulayam Singh said “the inquiry was ordered on three complaints made simultaneously by three ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MLAs and the fact that these bore identical language and the same print made it amply evident that their source was common.”
“I have enough evidence to prove that the inquiry officer simply carried out the diktat issued to him and that too within the deadline given to him,” he claimed.
He cited the case of a Muslim first class commerce graduate whose services were terminated on grounds of poor performance in the recruitment examination. “We are preparing a list of all such candidates who, prima facie, have no logical reason to be disqualified,” he added.
“Considering the open violation of all norms and even established rulings of the Supreme Court, I am sure some of the victims would soon seek judicial intervention and get the desired relief against this injustice from court,” he said.
Accusing Mayawati of victimising SP workers and supporters, he sought to highlight the names of several prominent SP leaders whom he said had been “framed” in different criminal cases.
“Even my son Akhilesh, who is a Lok Sabha member from Kannauj, was framed in a rape case which is yet to be closed even though the state police chief had declared that the case was false and that action was being taken against the complainant who belongs to the BSP,” Mulayam Singh said.
According to him, “more than 8500 SP workers had been framed on trumped up charges over the past three and a half months of Mayawati’s rule.”
Without disclosing his combat strategy, he declared: “We will soon mobilise a state wide movement against such undemocratic rule.”