Continuing the crackdown on Samajwadi Party MLA Ram Pal Yadav, a team of administrative and civic officials demolished his hotel in Sitapur on Friday even as the party again sacked him for six years.
The authorities said that Hotel Sparsh, owned by Yadav, was unauthorised and built in violation of building and land-use norms in 2015.
The move came a day after Yadav’s unauthorised commercial complex in the state capital was demolished in an operation that continued well past midnight. To prevent any untoward incident, the demolition squad cordoned off the entire Vadehi Vatika area on Sitapur-Lucknow National Highway 24, where the hotel is located.
A similar attempt to demolish the hotel was made on Thursday also but the authorities had to call off the operation midway after demolishing the boundary wall as a wedding ceremony was going on inside the hotel.
Meanwhile Yadav, along with his brother-in-law Rajendra Yadav (also a former SP MLA) and other relatives, was sent to jail by a local court here on a 14-day remand on charges of violence, attempt to murder and assault on officials of the demolition team of Lucknow Development Authority on Thursday.
By ordering a crackdown on its Sitapur MLA, the Samajwadi Party government may be trying to act tough and send out a message that it will deal sternly with those who break the law, irrespective of their political affiliation, but some political observers think otherwise. “The action against Ram Pal smacks of ‘political vendetta’. What else could have taken the authorities so long to act against him,” they said.
{{/usCountry}}By ordering a crackdown on its Sitapur MLA, the Samajwadi Party government may be trying to act tough and send out a message that it will deal sternly with those who break the law, irrespective of their political affiliation, but some political observers think otherwise. “The action against Ram Pal smacks of ‘political vendetta’. What else could have taken the authorities so long to act against him,” they said.
{{/usCountry}}The controversial MLA fell from grace of his political masters after his son defied the party line and contested the zila panchayat chairperson’s election, defeating the official party candidate Seema Gupta in Sitapur.