Samajwadi Party govt concedes Mayawati deity status

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What the Bahujan Samaj Party did not insist on doing, the Samajwadi Party government has done.
It has given the status of a deity to former chief minister Mayawati.

According to UP DGP, the case registered against unnamed persons for vandalising Mayawati’s statue on Thursday has been lodged under Section 295 of the IPC, which prescribes two years imprisonment for 'damaging place of worship or an object considered to be sacred by a section of people'.

The Section 295 of IPC states, “injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class. Whoever destroys, damages or defiles any place of worship, or any object held sacred by any class of persons with the intention of thereby insulting the religion of any class of persons or with the knowledge that any class of persons is likely to consider such destruction, damage or defilement as a insult to their religion, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both”.

The Section also makes the offence non-bailable.

The UP police, therefore, have admitted that Ms Mayawati holds great reverence and respect among a 'section of people' and that the place where her statue was installed is equivalent to being a place of worship.

While Ms Mayawati, in 2003, had asked her party workers to worship her, instead of Gods and Goddesses, she never used her government to attain the status of a deity even though she became the first living chief minister to have her statues installed in Lucknow and Noida.

In 2010, a lawyer, Kahnaiya Lal Rajput, of Mahoba district had offered three acres land for construction of a temple dedicated to Ms Mayawati as the residing deity and a 'Prerna Sthal' for dalits.

Earlier, in October 2007, one M.L. Dosad had released a book Mayawati-Ek Zinda Devi in which the BSP president was shown as an avatar of Goddess Kali. In 2009, artist Mahesh Tripathi had put a painting exhibition in Lucknow projecting Mayawati in different shades of divinity.

BSP seeks dismissal of Akhilesh govt

The Bahujan Samaj Party is determined to make an issue out of Thursday’s incident in which Ms Mayawati’s statue was vandalised in Lucknow even though a new statue of the former chief minister was installed in the early hours of Friday at the same site.

BSP leaders on Friday met UP governor B.L. Joshi and submitted a memorandum demanding dismissal of the Samajwadi government and imposition of President’s Rule in the state.

The BSP leaders, led by Leader of the Opposition Swami Prasad Maurya, former minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui and state president Ram Achal Rajbhar, told reporters after meeting the governor that the incident had proved beyond doubt that 'jungle raj' prevailed in Uttar Pradesh.

The delegation demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident so that the conspirators and those giving them shelter could be exposed. The delegation also met chief minister Akhilesh Yadav