Close to 200 Samajwadi Party leaders and activists were detained across Uttar Pradesh on Monday while staging protests against the arrest of four lawmakers, three of them belonging to the SP, in Partapgarh district.
Over 150 party leaders and workers, including Rajya Sabha MP Veerpal Singh and MLA Dharmendra Kashyap, were detained in Bareilly, SP sources said.
A number of activists were also rounded up in other districts as the party staged state-wide sit-ins to protest the arrest of an MP, two MLAs and an MLC on charges of threatening a contestant for local bodies election.
Samajwadi Party MP Shailendra Kumar, party MLA Vinod Saroj, Independent legislator Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, and SP MLC Akshay Pratap Singh alias Gopalji were among 11 people arrested yesterday in Partapgarh district.
The arrests were in effect after an FIR was registered in a police station on a complaint of Manoj Kumar Shukla, a candidate for Babuganj block head post.
All of them were produced before a court which sent them to 14-day judicial custody.
Gopalji is the cousin of Raja Bhaiya who is supported by the Samajwadi Party.
SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav had denounced the arrest of four lawmakers saying the ruling BSP was trying to terrorise its workers to win local bodies polls.
Vinod Saroj had lodged a counter FIR against Shukla and 20 others.
