LUCKNOW: Leader of the opposition in the state Assembly and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, along with party MLAs and MLCs, staged a dharna on road after their foot march to Vidhan Bhawan to attend the opening day of the monsoon session was stopped by the police.
The party legislators then held a ‘parallel assembly session’ which started with recital of Vande Mataram and ended with observing two-minute silence in memory of BJP MLA from Gola Gokarannath Arvind Giri who died of a heart attack on September 6. The dharna ended thereafter.
Accusing the police of stopping MLAs from reaching the assembly to attend the session, SP described the action as ‘murder of democracy’ by the ruling BJP and an attempt to muzzle the voice of the opposition which only wanted to voice the concerns of the poor and neglected. “It is the constitutional and democratic right of the MLAs to attend the Assembly session, but the police have stopped us from reaching the House,” he said, adding that the party would take up the issue with the Assembly speaker. Police however said that SP was offered an alternate route to avoid inconvenience to the people plying on road but refused to oblige.
“We wanted to raise issues like rising prices of essential commodities, increasing unemployment, spiraling crime graph – particularly crime against women, poor power situation, and worsening medical infrastructure. But the government does not want us to raise these issues. They want to silence the opposition by throwing all democratic norms to the winds,” Akhilesh said.
It all began around 9 am when SP MLAs, as per their announced program of 'padyatra', started to assemble at the party office on Vikramaditya Marg. SP had earlier announced that party MLAs led by Akhilesh would walk to the Vidhan Bhawan, carrying placards to highlight failures of the government at various fronts. By then, heavy police deployment and barricading had already come up on the road leading to SP office, with police, PAC and paramilitary forces lined up on either side of the road.
Subsequently, the SP chief arrived at the party office and at 9:45 am the foot march began with Akhilesh leading the party MLAs and MLCs. The march headed for GPO crossing. However, they were stopped at Bandariya Bagh crossing where police offered them to take the VVIP guest house road to reach Vidhan Bhawan. The SP workers didn't accept the suggestions and the deadlock continued till 10:10 am when Akhilesh staged a sit-in on the road. Other MLAs and MLCs followed suit.
The dharna continued till 11 am, the scheduled time for the assembly session to start. Thereafter, the SP leaders decided to hold a ‘parallel session’ of the assembly at the dharna site. The MLAs and MLCs recited 'Vande Mataram' – as per the practice of the House -- and thereafter former Assembly speaker and MLA from Itwa in Siddharthnagar, Mata Prasad Pandey, read out the obituary reference regarding the death of BJP MLA Giri. At 11:10 am, the dharna ended and SP leaders returned to the party office.
Later, joint commissioner of police (law and order), Piyush Mordia, who was supervising the security arrangements on ground, said the SP had not taken any permission from the administration to take out the 'padyatra'. “Still we offered them a specific route which would have allowed the traffic movement on busy routes continue uninterrupted. But they were adamant to take the Raj Bhawan gate route to reach the GPO crossing and head for Vidhan Sabha,” JCP Mordia said.
