A piquant situation arose in Rasra of Ballia district where UP cabinet minister Om Prakash Rajbhar chaired a janta durbar at police station premises after the SHO refused to come to the central office of Suheldeo Bahratiya Samaj Party (SBSP) for holding the durbar and redressing public complaints.
Rajbhar said that he called up SHO of Rasra police station on Wednesday afternoon asking him to come to SBSP office after people complained about the police not listening to their complaints.
“We waited for long and when he did not come, I decided to go to police station myself with supporters and held janta durbar at the police station premises,” he said.
“This is unfortunate that officers who are supposed to redress grievances of poor people are arrogant and this government is doing nothing to take them to task,” he told this reporter.
The minister said that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asked people’s representatives to hold janta durbar at their constituencies.
“I was doing the same and hence, summoned the SHO as people had complaints against him. I was within my right to do so as I am a cabinet minister in the government. I personally called up the SHO but he did not come,” he said.
“This shows the arrogance of the police officer. You can imagine if the officer is not listening to a cabinet minister what would be the fate of the common man, majority of whom are poor and belong to deprived sections of the society,” the minister said.
The reaction of the SHO was not known as he refused to answer text messages or take calls of this reporter.
This is no longer a secret that the BJP and the SBSP enjoy a blow hot, blow cold relationship between them. Rajbhar has off and on issued allegations of non-performance against the Yogi government. He had even claimed that the present government was corrupt and at times stressed that it was more corrupt than the previous Akhilesh Yadav government.
Some BJP MlAs have even attacked Rajbhar calling him an opportunist. They even claimed that some SBSP legislators had crossed voted in the last Rajya Sabha election.
The SBSP has four MlAs and one of them, Om Prakash Rajbhar is a cabinet minister in the Yogi government.