Mayawati demanded a 'personal explanation' from Akhilesh Yadav on Bulandshahr rapes.
In the spiraling public outrage over the gang-rape of a woman and her teen daughter in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr, just 65 km from Delhi, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is confronting demands for his resignation.
Sheila Dikshit, the chief ministerial candidate of the Congress for next year's state election, and former UP chief minister Mayawati were among the leaders who tore into the state government.
Demanding a "personal explanation" from Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati said: "If you can't manage UP, then resign as chief minister on moral grounds."
On Friday, a family from Noida near Delhi was travelling on the highway when an iron rod hit the car, forcing the driver to stop.
A gang of five men took over the car at gunpoint and drove it to a swamp. The men robbed the family, tied up the men and
dragged the 35-year-old woman and her 14-year-old daughter, took them to the bushes and gang-raped them for three hours, the police say.
The women were rescued by the police hours later around 5.30 am.
The incident took place barely 100 meters from a police post. Amid shock and condemnation, the Akhilesh Yadav government suspended the top rung of the local police and seven officers.
"Keep aside what the UP chief minister Akhilesh has done, this incident is very sad, shameful and heinous because if the police cannot help in such cases it signals that the law and order situation in UP is in bad shape and the common people do not feel safe in the state," said Sheila Dikshit.