Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati on Friday hit out at the Central government for banning the Popular Front of India (PFI) along with its eight affiliated organisations and said that it was part of the Sangh parivar's policy of appeasement.
“The targeting of the People's Front of India (PFI) across the country by the Centre and now the ban on it along with its eight affiliated organisations before Vidhan Sabha polls is being done under the policy of political selfishness and the Sangh's appeasement politics and this has led to … more restlessness among the people,” the BSP chief said in a tweet on Friday morning.
Days after the law enforcement agencies launched a nationwide crackdown on the PFI, the Centre on Wednesday banned the organisation and its affiliates for five years.
In another tweet, the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh said, “This is the reason that opposition parties have attacked the government for ulterior motives and have openly sought a ban on the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) as well, saying that if the PFI is a threat to internal security, then why are other similar organisations not banned?”
Mayawati is the first opposition leader in Uttar Pradesh to question the ban on PFI with Samajwadi Party deciding to remain silent.
Invoking the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act to effect the ban, the union Home Affairs Ministry said the PFI and its affiliates were linked to terror groups like ISIS and propagated “anti-national sentiments and radicalised a particular section of society with the intention to create disaffection” and constituted a “major threat to internal security of the country”.