MLA close to Yogi threatens to resign citing bad governance in UP

The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh is almost eight months old but the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmakers – both legislators and MPs – have started showing their displeasure over the quality of governance in the state as they believe that the BJP government has failed to solve people’s problems.

Mahendra Pal Singh, BJP MLA from Pipraich in Gorakhpur district, is the latest person to have voiced his resentment. He threatened to resign from Vidhan Sabha, saying when he was in no position to solve people’s problems, why should he continue as a legislator.

“When I am in no position to help victims, I feel I should quit,” Singh told this reporter from Gorakhpur.

The issue revolves around a land dispute. The MLA wanted a land dispute to be solved in favour of a farmer and asked the police to carry out investigation in a judicious manner. “My only request was that the genuine people should not suffer. Therefore, I made the request,” the MLA said.

He went to meet the inspector of Guleria Police Station with his request. He asked the inspector to reinvestigate the matter but the police refused to listen to him. Soon, pictures of the legislator sitting in a police station with folded hands spread on the social media. He was even quoted by local media as saying that if he was in no position to solve people’s problems, it was better for him to resign.

Incidentally, Singh is close to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Leaders in BJP say that he was handpicked by Yogi for the 2017 elections. The question doing the round is that if a man close to Yogi is dischanted with the functioning of the BJP government, what is the real state of things?

The MLA’s instance is not a stray one. BJP MP from Sonebhadra, Chotelal Kharwar, had written a letter to the Chief Minister, accusing the local administration of being involved in ‘illegal mining’.

He alleged that the administration was hand-in-glove with the mining mafia and his intermittent warnings had failed to evoke any positive response. Kharwar said that under the patronage of forest and mining officials, the mining mafia indulged in large-scale mining from rivers posing a big threat to the environment.

“The governments seems to have failed to check illegal mining,” he said.

As per reports, Kharwar told media persons in the district that he wrote to the Chief Minister demanding the latter’s intervention in checking illegal mining in Sonebhadra.

Earlier too, Kharwar has been in the news for wrong reasons. Two months back, he abused officials after his brother lost the trust vote for Block Pramukh post in Chaudauli.