SP counters Amit Shah for leveling 'foul' allegations against Shivpal Yadav

Hitting back at Amit Shah for claiming that Uttar Pradesh PWD Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav was responsible for the violence in Mathura, the Samajwadi Party on Monday said the allegations leveled by the BJP national president were completely baseless and foul.

"The allegation leveled by Amit Shah is completely foul. They (BJP) should first investigate before making such allegations. Shivpal Singh ji has no hand in this incident. So why he should resign?" SP leader Naresh Agarwal told ANI.

"Going by his logic, there are many BJP leaders which should be asked for their resignation," he added.

The BJP president has asked Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to demand the resignation of his younger brother Shivpal Yadav, squarely holding him responsible for the Mathura violence.

"If even a little bit of self-respect is left in Netaji (Mulayam), he should get minister Shivpal Yadav to resign immediately," Shah said in Kanpur.

Addressing a booth-level in-charge meet of Kanpur and Bundelkhand regions, he said: "An SP is killed in broad daylight. An SHO is killed. More than 200 people opened fire on police. But a minister (Shivpal) sitting in the secretariat patronises them and does not allow police to retaliate."

Shivpal, however, hit back at the BJP president and suggested him to follow positive, ideological and development oriented politics instead of misleading the people of the state.

"He has become short of issues due to better working of SP government and, therefore, he is giving baseless statements," he said.

Meanwhile, the combing operation by police is still going on at Jawahar Bagh, which witnessed the deadly clash between police and a cult group on June 2 rendering 25 dead and hundreds other injured.