Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday said that West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was attacked to ''prevent her from campaigning'' in the assembly polls.
''Mamata Banerjee has suffered injuries in her legs.....the attack was planned to prevent her from campaigning,'' Akhilesh said while speaking at a public meeting at Rampur, about 325 kilometres from Lucknow.
The SP leader said that one could not expect anything else from a party (BJP) whose leaders (read UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath) publicly said that ''patak ke mara jayega'' (we will thrash). He said that democratic institutions were under attack in the country in BJP's rule. ''Whosoever opposes this government is put behind the bars,'' he added.
Akhilesh had already declared his party's support to the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the West Bengal assembly polls and was also likely to campaign in Mamata Banerjee's favour in the state.
BSP supremo Mayawati sharply condemned the attack on Mamata and demanded a thorough probe.
''It is an unfortunate incident....the Election Commission must probe the incident thoroughly and punish the guilty,'' the BSP leader said in a post on her Twitter handle.
Mamata Banerjee has alleged that she was 'attacked' in Nandigram and was recently discharged from the hospital in Kolkata.
The BJP, on the other hand, has termed the incient a 'drama' aimed at garnering the voters' sympathy in the poll-bound state.