Bulandshahr gang rape case raises serious questions on Akhilesh’s governance

Last week's gang-rape of a mother and her teenage daughter in front of their family members in Bulandshahr, western Uttar Pradesh, has naturally stunned the whole nation.

Yet, if it does not appear to have rattled someone, it is Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who has done precious little beyond some lip-service of assuring "arrest" of each of the culprits "within 24 hours".

Sure enough, the incident adds yet another chapter to the ever deteriorating law and order in India's most populous northern state, notorious for the highest number of heinous crimes against women in the country.

Despite being an upright and tough man, for a change, heading the state police in recent years, the UP Police has not been able to nab more than three of the accused over the 96 hours that have since passed.

To add insult to injury comes prominent the UP minister Azam Khan's statement, terming the incident as "conspiracy by political adversaries".

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But what continues to puzzle all and sundry is the fact that CM Akhilesh Yadav has no plans of visiting the victims who are yet to get over the trauma.

Instead, he is urging the victims to come over to Lucknow for an audience with him at the chief minister's residence this weekend, where he plans to dole out his largesse in the hope that money will assuage their wounds.

Arrangements are being made by the state machinery to cart the victims and their entire family all the way from their home in Ghaziabad to the state capital.

This would be a repeat of how the family of RSS-sponsored "beef campaign" victim Akhlaq Ahmad was flown in from Noida to Lucknow to meet the chief minister.

What kept Akhilesh away from paying a visit to Akhlaq's traumatised family was an old superstition that a visit to Noida accelerates the fall of any chief minister's government.

However, considering that Bulandshahr victims hail from Ghaziabad, no one is able to explain why the "young and dynamic" chief minister is avoiding a visit to that place.

Just as Akhilesh is losing out on expressing compassion for the suffering family, his political adversaries have been taking all the mileage by making a beeline to visit the family and share their grief.

And the incident only provides them additional arsenal to train their guns at the sitting duck Akhilesh.

Sadly, Akhilesh could not muster up courage to rise above the superstition, which many of his predecessors including his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, as well as his archrival, Bahujan Samaj Party supremo, Mayawati, have believed in as the gospel truth.

The only time that Akhilesh Yadav cared to visit a grieving family in similar circumstances was flying down to Zuaffar village in eastern Uttar Pradesh's Deoria district, to meet the widow of deputy superintendent of police Zia Ul Haq, who was lynched to death by a violent mob in Kunda town of Pratapgarh district in March 2013.

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However, he was taken aback when thousands of people who had gathered in the village raised anti-government and showed black flags to the chief minister, as they demanded action against a powerful minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh - better known as Raja Bhaiya - whom they accused of being involved behind the officer's killing.

Cries of "Akhilesh Yadav go back" filled the air, making it difficult to even reach the residence of the victim's family, despite heavy police deployment.

After meeting the police officers, Yadav announced an ex gratia relief of Rs 25 lakh each to the slain officer's wife Parveen Azam and his father Shamsul-Haq, besides assuring a job to the wife as well as younger brother of the deputy SP. But that did not seem to pacify the angry crowds, which was what shook the chief minister.

Insiders believe that sour experience deters him from venturing into any such situation over the subsequent years, when he has preferred to call them over to Lucknow and carry out the ritual of handing over handsome compensation together with a package of reassurances, with an obvious view to defusing the charged feelings of the victims' kin.

A demonstration of the same exercise is likely to be replayed at the chief minister's residence once again.