New Delhi: Instead of putting the nation first, Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Samajwadi Party wants the government to evacuate stranded relatives of one of its lawmakers from Kathmandu on priority basis.
Prof. Ram Gopal Yadav, floor leader of the Samajwadi Party in the Rajya Sabha, on Monday created furore by demanding special treatment for two nephews of the party MP Naresh Agarwal, who are holed up in the earthquake devastated Nepal capital Kathmandu.
Participating in a debate on natural calamity that struck Nepal, India and some other countries, Yadav sought special arrangements to bring home relatives of Agarwal.
“Even though the [federal] government is sensitive to the tragedy, the Indian embassy in Kathmandu has not shown equal sensitivity,” Yadav complained in the Rajya Sabha, while expressing concern and urgency only for the relatives of a fellow party leader.
Thousands of Indians are still trapped in various parts of Nepal, while New Delhi is making all out efforts to rescue its nationals stranded in the disaster zone of the Himalayan nation.
According to Yadav, he talked to the Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj on Sunday with the request to evacuate Agarwal’s nephews and even got the foreign office to call up the Indian embassy in Kathmandu without any result.
Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav who is set to head the new party after the merger of half a dozen regional political parties is known to promote nepotism in politics.
His son Akhilesh is chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, while his younger brother Shiv Pal Yadav is a cabinet minister in the state government.
Akhilesh’s wife Dimple and Mulayam’s nephews Akshay and Dharmendra, grandnephew Tejpratap are all members of the Lok Sabha. Tejpratap recently got married to a daughter of former Bihar chief minister and the Rashtriya Janata Dal president Lalu Prasad Yadav. In fact, all five Samajwadi Party MPs in the Lok Sabha are from the same Yadav family.
Ram Gopal Yadav himself is cousin of Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Caught in an awkward situation after demanding VIP treatment to Agarwal’s nephews, Ram Gopal Yadav heaped praise on the federal government for its rescue and relief operations being carried out in neighbouring Nepal and added that his party government in Uttar Pradesh too has pitched in with its own efforts in the relief and rescue operations.
According to him, the Uttar Pradesh government has deployed its buses in border areas to bring back home stranded Indians and has sent food, medicines and relief supplies.
Senior Congress party leader Rajiv Shukla was caught in an embarrassing situation when confronted with the question of whether demanding special treatment for Agarwal’s relatives was justified when thousands of other Indians were still forced to spend nights in the open, while waiting to be brought back home.
Shukla, who was a journalist in the past, was brought to politics by Agarwal and nominated to the Rajya Sabha before the two drifted apart. While Agarwal joined the Samajwadi Party, Shukla joined the Congress party and even served as a junior minister in the previous Manmohan Singh government at the centre. Shukla disapproved of the Samajwadi Party demand and said efforts should be made to bring back to safety all Indians still trapped in the disaster zone.
