A statue of former UP chief minister and BSP president Mayawati was vandalised in Lucknow’s Gomti Nagar area on Thursday afternoon. A relatively unknown outfit, Uttar Pradesh Navnirman Sena, claimed responsibility for the act.
UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav strongly condemned the incident, saying it was an attempt to disturb harmony in the state.
He directed officials to take action against all those responsible, and get the statue replaced.
UP Navnirman Sena president Amit Jani held a press conference here Thursday morning and said his party would remove Ms Mayawati’s statues and replace them with those of Kargil martyrs and other dalit icons.
Amit Jani’s Facebook profile, however, says he is a Samajwadi Party member from Meerut, and there are photographs with SP leaders to support this.
He claimed that SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had promised to demolish Ms Mayawati’s statues, but the SP government failed to fulfill this promise.
After the press conference, around 1 pm, activists went to Bhimrao Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Sthal carrying a big hammer and before the security staff realised what was happening, they struck at the head of the statue and broke it.
They also broke the hands of the statue and then ran away.