Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati appears to have once again rubbed coalition partner Bharatiya Janata Party the wrong way.
This time the issue is the slapping of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) on independent MLA from Munda Raghuraj Pratap Singh and his father Udai Pratap Singh.
Close on the heels of BJP national general secretary Rajnath Singh's criticism, state BJP chief Vinay Katiyar too has taken strong exception to the action, believed to have been take at the behest of the chief minister.
At a press conference in Lucknow on Monday afternoon, Katiyar said, "POTA will have to be withdrawn. This law needs to be used sparingly."
"We are part of the ruling coalition and such action (use of POTA) is bound to affect us too," he said.
In a hardening of his position, Katiyar also said, "We have made Mayawati chief minister three times and we would want to do it again. But I can see some hurdles now."
In a related development, ten BJP legislators have demanded convening of an emergency meeting of the BJP state legislature party to discuss the issue. Former minister and BJP MLA from Ayodhya Lalloo Singh on Monday evening submitted a signed memorandum in this regard to BJP legislature party leader Lalji Tandon, in Lucknow.
However, Mayawati seems equally keen to pursue the POTA case. "There will be no compromise on the question of POTA. Action (against Raghuraj and Udai Pratap Singh) was taken only after going into all the legalities," she told newspersons.
"If Katiyar is unhappy with the decision to apply the anti-terrorism law in this case, let him tell his party leaders at the Centre to get the entire law scrapped," she said at a hurriedly convened press conference.
"I believe Vinay Katiyar is not aware of the facts of the case. Once he is apprised of the details, I am sure he will not press for withdrawal of POTA (against the duo)," she said.
"Whether the government stays or falls, it will not deter me from fighting criminals. The question of reviewing or revoking POTA against these persons just does not arise," she insisted.
Meanwhile, Katiyar has decided to appoint a high-powered committee of party leaders to look into the details of the imposition of POTA on Raghuraj Pratap Singh and his father.
In another development, former chief minister and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav demanded a CBI probe into the use of POTA against Raghuraj Pratap Singh and his father and sought punishment for the Pratapgarh district magistrate and the district's Senior Superintendent of Police, who he accused of 'hatching a plot to falsely implicate' the duo under the 'draconian law'.
Yadav also alleged that 'some IAS and IPS officers had conspired with terrorists to implicate Raghuraj Pratap Singh'.
The independent MLA and his supporter Akshay Pratap Singh are being held under the National Security Act.
Releasing a four-page letter he had written to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Yadav on Monday told newspersons, "It is the nation's misfortune that an elected representative has been indicted under a draconian law like POTA, which Deputy Prime Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani had said would be used only against terrorists."
He also released copies of a letter written by Raghuraj Pratap Singh's mother to President A P J Abdul Kalam and UP Governor Vishnukant Shastri in which she had expressed apprehensions that the state government may implicate her son and charge him under POTA.
A delegation of his party's MLAs and MPs would also meet President A P J Abdul Kalam to seek his intervention in the matter in case the prime minister did not listen to their plea, Yadav said.
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