It was a deafening silence and deserted look at memorial sites here on Saturday, a day after the Supreme Court issued stringent directives to the Mayawati government, asking it to stop all construction activity there forthwith.
In fact, the exercise to clear all the sites, where memorials have been planned for the BSP’s icons, of labourers and building materials and tools started on Friday itself, soon after the court directives were received by the government, and was completed by sundown.
These sites are the Bhimrao Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Sthal, the Ambedkar Udyan, the Kanshi Ram Smarak, the Kanshi Ram Sanskritik Sthal, the Ramabai Ambedkar Maidan and the Smriti Upvan.
Commotion over wage demand
At some sites, commotion prevailed as the labourers, mostly from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, demanded their daily wages but the contractors were missing from the scene.
The silence in the corridors of power in Lucknow is even more deafening, with no official willing to even mention the court orders.
Chief Minister Mayawati, however, held a meeting with senior officials including Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh, Additional Cabinet Secretary Vijay Shankar Pandey, and the Principal Secretary (Law) at her official residence on Friday.
