Two arrested for hurling tomatoes, eggs at UP minister's home

Lucknow, Apr 29: Two persons were today arrested for hurling tomatoes and eggs at the home of Uttar Pradesh minister Om Prakash Rajbhar for saying that Rajputs and Yadavs consumed more liquor than others. Youths, some of them wearing red caps, mobbed the minister's official residence in high-security Kalidas Marg area here yesterday, raising slogans and damaging his name plate.

Amit Kumar Yadav and Pramil Yadav have been arrested by the police in connection with the case, PRO, Director General of Police Rahul Srivastava told reporters here.

The FIR in the matter was registered at Gautampalli police station. Rajbhar had made the remarks in Varanasi on April 27 while arguing against drinking. "The maximum blame is put on Rajbhars, but the maximum liquor is consumed by Yadavs and Rajputs," the minister had said. "This is their ancestral business," he is heard saying on television. But he added that people from the his own Rajbhar and all other castes also drink. "If you want to know the pain, ask any mother, sister or wife to whose homes their loved ones come drunk," he said.

Rajbhar, who heads the backward classes welfare portfolio in the UP Cabinet, is a leader of BJP ally, Suheldev Bharatiya Party. Reacting to the minister's remarks, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav had tweeted, "It is people who use intoxicants, not any caste."

In his tweet, Akhilesh Yadav asked, "Why only liquor?" He said campaigns should also be run against the consumption of other intoxicants, listing "ahankar" or ego along with ganja, charas and tobacco. Rajbhar has courted controversy earlier with his criticism of the performance of the Yogi Adityanath government in the state.

PTI