Mayawati suspends BSP legislator accused of rape

LUCKNOW - Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati Sunday ordered the suspension of party legislator Purshottam Narain Dwivedi for his alleged involvement in the gangrape of a minor girl in the state’s Banda district.

The suspension would remain in force during the CID probe ordered by the chief minister Saturday night.

The announcement of the suspension came amidst strident criticism of the ruling party by opposition leaders, who accused Mayawati of “shielding” the rapist of a minor girl belonging to a backward community.

“Besides ordering immediate suspension of the MLA (member of legislative assembly) from the party, the chief minister has also made it loud and clear that Dwivedi would be expelled from the party and even put behind bars if he were found guilty,” cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh said at a press conference here.

“However if the CID did not find the charges against him to be true, his suspension would be revoked,” he added.

The 17-year-old victim had accused Dwivedi and his henchmen of not only subjecting her to gangrape but also using his influence to falsely implicate her in a case of theft.

Dwivedi accused her of stealing the legislator’s licensed revolver and Rs. 5,000 from his house, for which she was currently lodged in jail in Banda, 180 km from here.

“The chief minister has always been very sensitive on such issues and has never hesitated in taking prompt punitive action against anyone, including her own party men, if they were found involved in anti-social or criminal activities,” Singh said.

“On the contrary, chief ministers of other political parties rarely showed such courage in initiating action against their own party leaders accused of criminal activities,” he alleged, citing a long list of offences committed by leaders of different political parties as also other major crimes committed during successive regimes in the state.

Besides citing a number of such cases of the Mulayam Singh Yadav regime, he also went as far back as the early 1980s to cite the case of the murder of then chief minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s brother Justice C.S.P.Singh, who was gunned down in broad daylight.

The cabinet secretary also questioned National Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission chairman P.L.Punia’s right to seek a report from the district magistrate in the Banda rape case. “As chairperson of the commission, he has no right to directly seek any report from a district magistrate,” he said.

Asked if the CID was given a time-frame to complete the probe, Singh said that no time-frame was fixed, “but normally they take a minimum of three weeks to submit a preliminary report”.