Mayawati slams Akhilesh's 'Rath Yatra', terms SP as hooligans' party

Akhilesh's vehicle during the Vikas Yatra broken down just after covering a kilometer on Thursday

Lucknow, Nov 3: BSP supremo Mayawati on Thursday dismissed Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's "Vikas Yatra" as a gimmick while hitting out at his Samajwadi Party, which she termed as a band of hooligans.

Referring to the scuffle between Samajwadi Party workers in front of the Chief Minister's official residence, she said they even forgot the decorum of the place.

Terming the 'Vikas Yatra' in fact a 'Badhaal Vikas Yatra', the former Chief Minister said, in a statement, that in the last four years the ruling party had presided over chaos and a lumpen system.

This is a party of hooligans and muscle power, she said while recalling a murderous attack on her by SP party workers in the mid-1990s after her Bahujan Samaj Party walked out of a coalition government with it.

"It is a party in which even a legislator was bashed up by a minister... the SP leaders and workers have no respect for law and order," she added.

Also attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party, Mayawati claimed that it had a secret understanding with the SP for its own narrow and vested political interests.

The UP Governor has said that there is no constitutional crisis despite deep factionalism within the party and now the BJP is quiet on the misrule of the SP government in the state, she said.

She also claimed that government machinery was misused for the 'Rath Yatra' and asked people to be alert against any sweet talk by the SP.

IANS