In its bid to reach out to the nonYadav OBCs social groups the Samajwadj party has decided to intensify the campaign against the killing of Sumit Gujjar in an alleged fake encounter in Gautam Buddh nagar district (NOIDA). Sumit Gujjar, 26 native of Bagpat district, as per the police carried a reward of Rs 50,000 on his head was gunned down in an encounter on October 3 in NOIDA.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav will be in Saharanpur on Tuesday to attend the birth anniversary celebrations of a veteran Gujjar leader Chowdhary Yashpal Singh. Aftet the worst ever poll debacle of the party in recent assembly elections Akhilesh Yadav had unveiled his plans of `social engineering’ for forging new social coalition with other castes and communities particularly the non Yadav OBCs.
The Gujjar community, a dominant OBCs group in West UP districts has organized the event to mobalise the support of the community spread in Meerut and Saharanpur divisions to intensify protest and demand the CBI inquiry into the encounter. Several panchyats of the Gujjar community have already been organized in Bagpat and Meerut district and a mahapanchyat is proposed to be held in Bagpat ahead of Deewali festival. Yashpal Singh, a veteran leader of, who died in 2015, was 6 term MlA and former Congress MP from Saharanpur. He was also the minister in Congress government headed by Vishwanath Pratap Singh in 1980. After the decline of the Congress he had joined the Samajwadi Party and was national vice president of the party at the time of his death.
What has added to the morale of the Samajwadi party is the unconditional support extended to the agitation by the Jat community, also a dominant OBCs group electorally crucial for all the political players in Western UP. Naresh Tikait of the Bhartiya Kisan Union has also visited the village of Sumit Gujjar and assured support of the Jat community for the CBI inquiry into the incident.
The Samajwadi Party has already submitted a memorandum to the state Governor Ram Naik demanding a CBI probe into the incident. Senior SP leader and the leader of opposition Ram Govind Chowdhary has also led a party delegation for conducting inquiry into the incident. He had visited the Chirchita, the native village of Sumit Gujjar under Simbhavali Ahir police station of Bagpat district.
Much to the discomfiture of the UP government the National Human rights commission taking suo motto cognizance of the incident has issued notice to the state’s chief secretary and the DG police, calling for a report on the matter within four weeks.
The leader of opposition Ram Govind Chowdhary said he had visited the family of Sumit Gujjar and they alleged that he was killed in a staged encounter after police had picked up him from a market. ``It was a cold blooded murder in broad daylight by the police and the investigation into the matter should be handed over to the CBI for an impartial investigation’’, said Chowdhary,
In 2017 state assembly elections Akhilesh Yadav had attempted to draft the Gujjar community in Muslim-Yadav social coalition. To woe the Gujjar comm. unity, who profess the Hinduism and Islam, Samajwadi Party had given over a dozen tickets to the community leaders in Bagpat, NOIDA, Meerut and Saharanpur. Akhilesh Yadav during his tenure as Chief Minister had also nominated two Gujjar leader Chowdhary Virendra Singh of Muzaffarnagar and Narendra Singh Bhati of NOIDA as members of the state legislative council.