‘UP DGP biased, has to be removed,’ says Akhilesh Yadav ahead of elections

india

Updated: Mar 10, 2019 22:26 IST

Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday demanded removal of Uttar Pradesh’s director general of police OP Singh before the Lok Sabha election, alleging that the police chief’s conduct was biased and so was the force’s.

“The police is committing atrocities on the common man and arresting opposition parties workers on flimsy grounds,” he said and claimed that he been demanding the DGP’s removal for a long time.

Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati too had demanded the DGP’s removal and the Election Commission should take cognizance of the matter, he said at a press conference here.

Also read: Stopped at Lucknow airport by cops, Akhilesh Yadav pans UP’s ‘roko, thoko neeti’

When asked, chief electoral officer (CEO), U.P., L Venkateshwar Lu said, the Election Commission was yet to receive a complaint from political parties about the removal of the DGP or other state government officers.

The SP chief also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of using the army for political gains in the Lok Sabha election and pointed out that the Election Commission had directed political parties not to use photographs of defence personnel in their election campaign material.

Yadav said, “There are several members of my family, as well as that of my wife Dimple Yadav in the army. Some of them were killed on the border. SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav was defence minister, but the party never used the army for political gains,” he said.

On Saturday, the Election Commission directed political parties to desist from displaying photographs of defence personnel in advertisements or otherwise as part of their election propaganda or campaigning following a complaint by the ministry of defence.

Yadav said people will vote for change in the Lok Sabha election. “The SP will raise the issues of unemployment, price rise, agrarian distress, unfulfilled promises, exodus of industries and failure of the police to arrest economic offenders.”

The SP chief claimed the BJP was misguiding the people about mobile phone manufacturing units in Uttar Pradesh. “Mobile phone parts were being imported from China and assembled in the Noida-Ghaziabad area,” he said.

The SP and BSP formed an alliance in January to take on the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. Both sides had said they would contest 38 seats each out of UP’s 80 Lok Sabha seats. Last month, the two parties said they would also fight the Lok Sabha polls jointly in Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh will vote in all seven phases in the general elections that were announced by the Election Commission on Sunday.