'Mulayam has vested interest in Gorakhpur violence'

New Delhi, Feb 4: AICC General Secretary Ashok Gehlot said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav should request the Centre for deploying army in Gorakhpur to control the situation.

He alleged the Samajwadi Party and the BJP do not want the situation in Gorakhpur to improve so as to ensure that people are polarised along religious lines.

''Violence has been raging not only in Gorakhpur but the entire north Uttar Pradesh since last one week creating a sense of insecurity among the minorities, but the Mulayam Singh Yadav government is least bothered about it,'' he said in an interview to UNI here.

Mr Gehlot said the state government did not take adequate steps to deal with the situation which had resulted in the tense situation in eastern Uttar Pradesh for the last seven days. Trains and buses have been set ablaze.

''If Mr Yadav wants to remove the difficulties of the people then he should insist on the army's deployment by the Centre,'' he said and added if the state is unable to improve the situation with the help of para military forces, due to their being sent for the Ardh Kumb, the Chief Minister should have sought more forces from the Centre.

Mr Gehlot alleged Mr Yadav did not want the siutation in Gorakahpur to improve, adding the 'state government had handed over the entire region to anti-social elements'.

He also criticised the Chief Minister for preventing Union Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal and Congress leaders Salmand Khursheed and Pramode Tiwari from going to Gorakhpur.

Leaders of political parties going to violence-affected or troubled places help maintain peace, but the ban by the Uttar Pradesh government to such visits shows that the ruling party's intentions are not good, he added.

Mr Gehlot charged that whatever had happend in Gorakhpur during the last one week was ''a calculated design'' on the part of the 'SP and BJP' to ''highten communal tension in the state''.

He apprehended that due to the coming assembly elections, such incidents might increase.

UNI

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