The brazen manner in which the Yogi Adityanath administration abruptly ordered the cancellation of Lucknow Literary Festival reflects the despotic attitude of his government against freedom of expression.

The district administration formally granted permission for what was the fifth annual literary festival. However, what came as a rude shock to the organisers on the opening day of the three-day event scheduled on Friday was the sudden withdrawal of permission, soon after the arrival of popular JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, whose much-talked about book, Bihar to Tihar was to be discussed at the festival.

Bollywood star-turned-politician and BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha, whose biography Anything but Khamoshi authored by Bharti Pradhan was discussed at the event, was pointedly critical of the way things were in his party. Sinha did not hesitate to criticise Prime Minister Narendra Modi on many counts.

Yet another BJP baiter, president of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), Asaduddin Owaisi too was slated to appear for a session at the festival on Saturday, followed by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders Sanjay Singh and Ashutosh on Sunday.

BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha: “They think demonetisation and GST were revolutionary steps; but I feel they only brought misery to the people of the country.” Photo: DailyO

No sooner than Kanhaiya Kumar reached the venue – Sheroes Café – run by acid attack victims in Lucknow’s posh Gomati Nagar, a dozen right-wing activists donning saffron scarves began raising slogans against him, telling him to “go back”.

Far from chastising the lumpen element s, the cops on duty joined them to seek Kanhaiya’s ouster from the venue. When the organiser, Shamim Arzoo showed the cops the permission issued by district magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma, a senior police officer appeared on the scene to tell him, “You have violated the rules so your permission is being withdrawn.” He did not explain what “rules were violated.”

Later, Arzoo was informed that he was required to submit the names of each of the event’s participants to the state authorities and because he failed to do so, the permission was being withdrawn.

The matter was taken up by the district magistrate who is understood to have discussed it with higher-ups in the government, following which the decision to revoke the permission was conveyed in writing to the organisers.

"The Model Code of Conduct is in force in view of the upcoming local body elections and because we had no knowledge that leaders and actors had been invited to the festival, security arrangements were not made," the district magistrate said.

It is learnt that what actually irked the Yogi government were Shatrughan Sinha’s remarks against the prime minister. Declaring candidly that PM Modi’s thinking did not conform to the thinking of his party leadership and the government, Sinha observed: “They think they can have a class 12 pass out as the country’s HRD minister and an unpopular lawyer as the country’s finance minister. It reflects their mindset, not mine.”

He went on to add, “They think demonetisation and GST were revolutionary steps; but I feel they only brought misery to the people of the country.”

And the BJP leader didn’t stop at that. He even talked about the sidelining of party veteran Lal Krishna Advani. "By isolating stalwarts like Advaniji, the party leadership has shown its mentality towards those who built the party and its ideology," he said, at a Q&A session to discuss his biography.

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