Lucknow, Nov 24 (IANS): As the political slugfest between the BJP and Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh goes down to new depths, former Director General of Police (DGP) and now BJP Rajya Sabha member, Brijlal, has shot down the claims of Akhilesh Yadav on the law-and-order situation in his regime.
"The infamous Lucknow guest house incident of 1995, which hogged media glare for years and sent shockwaves in the political establishment, cutting across party lines, is a living testimony of the SP misrule of the past, the BJP MP said.
He recalled that in Bulandshahr, about a dozen people had harassed the mother and daughter by dragging them from the road. Not a single accused was arrested while the world was shaming the Samajwadi government on the issue, its senior minister Mohd Azam Khan was shamelessly defending the indefensible.
The former DGP said that in a similar incident in Badaun, the name of a close associate of a Samajwadi Party MP had cropped up and at that time, the SP government did not utter a word.
The Aashiana rape case of Lucknow also happened under the nose of the SP government in which the name of the nephew of a prominent SP MLC had come up.
He further stated that a senior SP minister, whose name had become synonymous with illegal mining and graft -- Gayatri Prajapati -- had recently been convicted for rape and was serving sentence for it.
Brijlal reminded the Samajwadi Party of the statement made by its founder Mulayam Singh Yadav who, at a rally in Moradabad, had poked fun on the rape charges against some of his party men by saying, "boys are boys, mistakes happen".
The former DGP said, "The difference between the then SP government and the present BJP government is crystal clear -- while the previous government sided with the goons, mafias and anti-social elements, the Yogi Adityanath government has shocked the daylights out of criminals. Many of them were already dead and the others had either fled the state or surrendered and were now behind bars."
He said that employment to lakhs of women, the establishment of a women battalion in PAC, giving the beat to women police personnel in police stations for the first time are added proof of this government's commitment to the safety and security of women.