BJP minister threatens toll plaza employees in UP

Uttar Pradesh minister and senior BJP leader Surya Pratap Shahi threatened the manager of a toll plaza in the state's Kushinagar district, about 350 km from here after the former refused to allow the latter's supporters vehicles to pass through without paying toll charges.

According to reports, Shahi, while travelling on NH 28 in the district, asked the toll plaza employees to let the vehicles of his supporters also pass without paying any charge.

When the toll plaza employees insisted, the minister summoned the manager and asked him to exempt his supporters from paying a toll.

The repeated pleas by the manager that the rules did not permit any exemption to the supporters and that the categories of the exempted people had been displayed at the entrance of the toll plaza had no effect on the minister, reports said.

The supporters of the minister then threatened the manager and employees of the toll plaza with consequences if they were charged a toll.

"The minister asked me not to charge toll from his supporters whenever they passed through...I expressed my helplessness and cited the rules...he continued to insist," the toll manager Vivek Singh said.