Mayawati takes a swipe at CM Akhilesh Yadav for SP candidate Atiq Ahmed’s arrest for assault

Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati on Thursday took a swipe at Uttar Pradesh chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav over his party man’s recent arrest in an assault case in Allahabad. 

Taking a dig at Akhilesh over his claims on cutting down response time of state police, Mayawati termed the alleged manhandling of university staff by Samajwadi Party’s controversial candidate from Kanpur Cantt Atiq Ahmed as a “slap on the face of state government.”

Ahmed, who is a mafia don-turned-politician, has been booked for allegedly assaulting the staff of Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHIATS) on the outskirts of Allahabad on Wednesday. 

“The Chief Minister makes tall claims about law and order and development, but the entire nation knows that ever since this government came to power, 22 crore people of the state have been living under threat and fear of criminals,” the BSP supremo said in a statement in Lucknow on Thursday.

“Government advertisements have been put up on ‘UP-100’ (helpline) cutting police response time to 20 minutes and in this light, the goondagardi (hooliganism) of Atiq Ahmed in Allahabad, as reported in media, is a slap on the face of SP government,” she said.

The BSP supremo also challenged the Chief Minister to send goonda and mafia elements associated with his party to jail.