Yogi Adityanath govt unfit to govern; President should dismiss it: M Veerappa Moily

Former law minister and senior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily on Friday urged President Ram Nath Kovind to dismiss the Yogi Adityanath government, alleging that atrocities on women have become the order of the day in the state.

Moily hit out at the UP government over the police's alleged misbehavior with opposition leaders Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and Derek O’brien, and for stopping them from visiting the family of the Hathras gang-rape victim.

"Attack on leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Derek O’brien and many other Members of Parliament using brutal police force reflects British brutality of pre-independent India," he said in a statement.

The instances of murder, rape and atrocities on women belonging to schedule caste and other vulnerable sections of the society have become "the order of the day" in Uttar Pradesh, Moily alleged.

"Rajdharma has been set to flames to advance the call of greedy politics. Adityanath and members of his cabinet are unfit to govern the state," he claimed.

"The President of India should immediately step in to dismiss the government..to uphold the highest tradition of democracy," he said.

His attack on the government comes a day after Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi were detained by the police and sent back to Delhi, after they tried to reach Hathras to meet the family of the victim.

The Trinamool Congress on Friday alleged that its woman MP Pratima Mandal was manhandled and pushed by a senior district official when she was on her way to Hathras in Uttar Pradesh.

The party also shared a number of short video clips which showed its leader in Rajya Sabha Derek O'Brien being pushed to ground by police personnel and Mandal being manhandled.

The 19-year-old Dalit woman was allegedly raped at a village in Hathras by four men on September 14. After her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Delhi's Safdarjung hospital where she breathed her last on Tuesday.

She was cremated in the early hours of Wednesday, with her family alleging the local police forced them to conduct the last rites in the dead of the night.

Local police officers, however, had said the cremation was carried out "as per the wishes of the family".