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Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav took the Mayawati-led Uttar Pradesh administration by surprise on Tuesday, when he slipped through a virtually impregnable police cordon to reach downtown Hazratganj in Lucknow and lead a sit-in demonstration, to protest against the unabated price rise and increasing crime in the state .
Even as thousands of policemen were deployed to control Mulayam and SP members from holding their demonstration, the former wrestler managed to break through at least three police barricades and squat on the tiny traffic island at Lucknow's busiest junction, where he was eventually arrested along with hundreds of his supporters.
Thousands of SP workers were also arrested from different district headquarters, where similar protest demonstrations were led by prominent SP leaders including Mulayam's younger brother Shivpal Yadav and son Akhilesh Yadav.
Yet, it was Mulayam, 71, who stole the show by displaying a glimpse of his old element, that had earned him the sobriquet of 'dhartiputra'(son of the soil) .
Partymen were candid enough to attribute Mulayam's return to the grassroots as a consequence of his parting of ways with Amar Singh, the former blue-eyed boy of the SP chief, who recently ended his long association with the party on a bitter note.
Clearly, the heavy police deployment to prevent Mulayam from making his protest demonstration a success, proved counter-productive. While the policemen failed to stop him from bulldozing intensive security cordons, Mulayam and his supporters paralysed the main city thoroughfare at Hazratganj for over an hour, before the SP chief was arrested. And in spite of repeated baton charges by the policemen, enthusiastic SP workers continued with their demonstration.
The rickety state road transport corporation bus, in which Mulayam was ushered in after his arrest, was unable to carry the load of hundreds of his supporters, who stuffed themselves inside the vehicle and covered every inch of its roof.
A senior police officer had to climb atop the bus and force SP members to clamour down and get inside other buses. The bus continued to be intercepted by agitating SP activists who swarmed from different sides to stop the vehicle, until they too were hoarded into more vehicles, which were hurriedly requisitioned by the administration. The entire motorcade took nearly two hours to cover the short distance of barely three kilometres from Hazratganj to the district police headquarters, where the protestors were kept under detention.
Normal life was completely disrupted today due to the total ban on vehicular and pedestrian traffic on all roads leading to Mulayam's residence and the SP state headquarters on the posh Vikramaditya Marg.
As slogans of "Samajwadi Party zindabad and Mulayam Singh tum sangharsh karo; hum tumhare saath hain" (Mulayam you lead the movement; we are with you) filled the air, Mulayam lambasted the Mayawati government, claiming it was "totally autocratic, undemocratic, corrupt and inefficient".
While blaming the Centre for the unprecedented price rise, he chose to largely train his guns at the Mayawati regime. "The blatant oppression unleashed by the Mayawati government will eventually become the cause of its doom; I can assure you that that this government is now on its last legs," he declared.