Senior leaders like former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, UPCC President Rita Bahuguna Joshi and BJP legislature party leader Om Prakash Singh have repeatedly been saying that there is an 'emergency' in the State where all the pillars of democracy are under attack from the government.

The UPCC president charged Mayawati government with being fascist when a recent demonstration of UP Mahila Congress led by national president Prabha Thakur, MP, was lathi-charged by the State police resulting in injuries to Bahuguna herself, national secretary Pervez Hasimi, MP and many others.

Bahuguna said the Mahila Congress delegation had sought an appointment with the Chief Minister to submit a memorandum on atrocities against women. When the CM refused to meet the delegation, the Mahila Congress held a peaceful dharna at Shaheed Smarak. But the state police resorted to a brutal lath-charge.

The UPCC chief said when she raised the issue of the plight of women in Moradabad, she was not only sent to jail but her house was set on fire in the presence of senior police officers. She charged that those politicians of the Bahujan Samaj Party who were behind the incident were reportedly rewarded by the Chief Minister with ranks of ministers of state.

Rita Bahuguna said it was not her party alone which was at the receiving end of the Government's strong-arm tactics. All parties which staged dharnas in support of the issues plaguing the common man were subjected to brutal lathi-charges. She listed the names of Samajwadi Party, BJP, Shikshak Mitra, state government employees, teachers, Muslim organisations, etc.

SP chief Mulayam has also been saying over the last two years that there is an emergency-like situation in UP where political parties had no right to hold peaceful demonstrations to raise issues like price rise and atrocities on women including Dalits.

Mulayam, who himself led the state-wide agitation against price rise and misrule of the Mayawati government, was prevented from coming out of his residence. But the SP president somehow hoodwinked the police bandobast and managed to come out on the street of Hazratganj to stage a dharna. But the party workers were, however, subjected to a lathi-charge.

Mulayam charged the Mayawati government with preventing opposition parties from raising issues through demonstrations and meetings which was their constitutional right.

Similarly, BJP leaders too are angry that their demonstration held in 2009 was lathi-charged brutally.

Even state government employees and government teachers have not been spared by the Mayawati Government. In January, when the state government employees and teachers staged a dharna to demand implement of the recommendations of the sixth pay panel, the administration resorted to the worst type of lathi-charge; in some place the police opened fire in the air.

So bad is the situation that a district magistrate who openly slapped the state government employees was promoted by the state government while employees who were the victims of highhandedness of the DM Lucknow were sent to jail.

The protests by Muslim organisations and Shikshak Mitra also received the same brutal treatment by the State police.

Commenting on the prevailing situation, national general secretary of CPI Atul Anzan said that UP was reeling under the worst-type of emergency, chaos and suffocation where all democratic values had bee set aside.

He further said that during the last two and a half years' rule, Mayawati had refused to listen to the grievances of people from delegations of political parties or mass organisations.

The CPI leader said the government was so much averse to people's protests that the venue of one such protest which was just opposite the Council House was shifted to the banks of river Gomati where even media found it difficult to cover the event (IPA)