UP minister threatens to get Lokayukta removed

Haathras/Lucknow, Dec 31: With several members of Mayawati ministry facing the heat from the anti-graft ombudsman, state Energy Minister Ramveer Upadhyaya launched a scathing attack on UP Lokayukta Justice N K Mehrotra and threatened to get him removed.

"BJP national general secretary Kirit Somaiya lodged a complaint against me with Lokayukta, but nothing was found. If I did not have personal relationship with Lokayukta.... I could have moved the Supreme Court and got him removed," Upadhyaya said while addressing a public meeting in Haathras last evening.

Reacting on the minister's outburst, Lokayukta Justice Mehrotra said that the the statement was made out of anxiety at the behest of the BSP and the Election Commission should take cognisance of the matter.

The minister said, "I told the Lokayukta that I want to meet him...he said that come to my house as my stature is not so to call you to my office Ramveer Upadhyaya," "I told him that I won't come to your office...even if you consider me guilty not even then.... I went to his house and told him that what he is and what he can do and what I am and what I can do," he said.

The minister said, "I had been a student of law and I know law very well...I know law more than him." Ahead of the assembly polls, five minister had been removed by Mayawati on the recommendation of Lokayukta Justice N K Mehrotra. "It is an act out of anxiety.... it's not an individual act, but party act," Justice Mehrotra said on the minister's statement.

The Lokayukta said that while on one hand Upadhyaya claims of having personal relationship with him, on the other he threatens of approaching the Supreme Court and get him removed. He said that probably it was attempt to create pressure so that the inquiry against him does not proceed.

Justice Mehrotra said that there was a provision in law where a complaint on a matter could be lodged before the competent magistrate, but as Upadhyaya wanted to take advantage of the situation, he was not considering taking action as of now. "People will teach him a lesson in the elections," he said.

PTI