By PTI
GORAKHPUR: The son of former UP minister Swami Prasad Maurya, fighting from the Fazilnagar assembly constituency as a Samajwadi Party candidate, was on Wednesday taken to the police station for questioning on the allegation that he was distributing money to people on the eve of polling.
Kushinagar District Magistrate S Rajalingam gave this information while denying Mauray’s claim that his son Ashok Maurya was arrested in a “false” case of instigating violence against BJP supporters.
DM Rajalingam denied the allegation saying Maurya’s son has been taken to the police station only for questioning after allegedly being found distributing money to voters on the eve of voting in the area.
“The information of arrest is totally wrong. We got information in the evening that Swami’s son is distributing money and campaigning and he along with some others were found on the spot in three vehicles and police took him to the police station,” the DM said.
“He is not a voter of the area and what he was doing there within 48 hours of the poll is a clear violation of the Model Code of Conduct,” the DM said, adding he has been taken to the police station only for questioning.
“The information of arrest is wrong. A probe has been initiated in the matter,” the DM said.
Maurya, a former Cabinet colleague of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, made the claim of his son’s arrest in a social media post soon after two cross-FIR were lodged by the Kushinagar police on Wednesday on complaints by his party supporters and those of BJP candidate Surendra Singh Kushwaha.
In the FIR and the counter-FIR, each of the two sides has alleged attack on it by the other side.
The FIR lodged on the complaint of the BJP side accused former UP minister Maurya, his daughter Sanghmitra Maurya, a BJP MP, and son Ashok Maurya of leading and instigating their supporters to attack the participants of a saffron party’s poll procession, police said.
The second FIR lodged by Maurya’s supporters made similar allegations against Kushwaha, block head Vashisht Rai alias Guddu Rai and others, police said.
The two FIRs together named 39 people from both side and hundreds of other unidentified people in them, the police said.
Both sides accused each other of a planned attack and based on their written complaints, FIRs were lodged against 39 named people, including 25 of Maurya’s side and 14 belonging to the BJP side besides hundreds of other unnamed people of both sides, police said.
“Based on written complaints from both sides, FIRs have been lodged under sections 147, 148, 171-F, 308, 323, 352, 392, 427, 504, 506 of the Indian Penal Code,” Kushinagar Superintendent of Police Sachindra Patel said.
These sections respectively pertain to rioting, rioting using deadly weapons, exercising undue influence during elections, attempting culpable homicide, causing injury, using criminal force, committing robbery, causing mischief, breaching the peace and issuing threats.
