After SP, it is BJP's turn to face Maya's wrath

Barely 72 hours after Samajwadi Party activists were brutally beaten up for staging an anti-Mayawati government demonstration in Lucknow, it was now Bhartiya Janata Party's turn to face the wrath of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati.

Led by the state party chief Surya Pratap Shahi and the party's veteran local MP Lalji Tandon, BJP's mayors and other elected representatives of local bodies were not only disallowed to proceed towards the Governor's House, but also subjected to cane charge.

Raising anti-Mayawati slogans, the protestors sought her resignation and wanted to hand over a memorandum in that regard to the Governor.

However, they were intercepted just outside the state BJP headquarters, about 500

metres away from Raj Bhawan.

Resistance put up by the BJP activists turned the cops even more aggressive as they went about thrashing the demonstrators with canes until the former were arrested and packed off in buses to the local district jail.

"We are opposed to the bill moved by the Mayawati government to discontinue the prevailing system of direct election of mayors and heads of local bodies," Shahi told media persons.

Shahi, who was injured in the cane charge, told media persons, "We wanted to go to the Governor and urge him not to give his assent to the bill that seeks to deprive common people to elect their city mayors and municipal heads."