Opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday hit out at the Uttar Pradesh government’s “dictatorship” after he was forced to jump over the locked gate of Lucknow’s Jayprakash Narayan International Centre (JPNIC) to garland Jayprakash Narayan’s statue on the socialist leader’s birth anniversary.
Yadav accused the state government of trying to stop him from garlanding the statue by locking the gate. He attacked the government over its undemocratic behaviour and said those with “iron will” cannot be stopped. “Samajwadis [socialists] will continue to struggle against the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] government’s autocracy.”
He questioned what was the point of democracy when obstacles were created for even garlanding a statue. “The BJP cannot block the SP.”
A furious Yadav jumped over the gate and garlanded the statue after SP workers unwrapped it from a tarpaulin sheet. Earlier, Yadav arrived at JPNIC on a bus. SP workers created a ruckus amid a heavy police deployment demanding the authorities allow Yadav entry on the bus.
SP leader Ashutosh Varma said the BJP was repeating the same mistake that Congress made in the 1970s when Narayan, popularly known as JP, led his Total Revolution Movement against then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Officials insisted that JPNIC was closed due to some work and that a case could be registered for trespass.
