Billboards have sprung up in UP’s state capital, Lucknow, attributing the recent surge in terror strikes to the central government by blaming it for not doing enough to curb militancy in the state. The billboards, put up by ruling party BSP, proclaim Central inefficiency to be at fault for the spurt in militant-led attacks in the state.

They single out the central intelligence agencies especially, for their failure in gathering information. They also link the attacks to the rise in infiltration of militants from various points across the country’s international border. The attack on the CRPF camp in Rampur on 1st January is claimed to have been caused due to such transgressions on part of the Centre.

In recent months, UP has reeled under a series of attacks that has threatened to disrupt peace in the region. In the worst case of its kind, the state was torn apart by carefully coordinated terror strikes at Faizabad, Lucknow and Varanasi on November 23, last year, that took the lives of around 20 people. In the incident on New Year Day in Rampur, militants, believed to be two or four in number, killed 7 CRPF personnel apart from taking the life of one civilian.

The administrations at the Centre as well as the state are being stretched to their limits in finding ways to stop the menace. These incidents are also proving to be the toughest challenge that faces the ruling party leadership under Mayawati ever since it took over power in May 2007.

Also, the attack in Rampur has brought things to a boiling point in the relationship between the ruling parties at the State and the Centre. The proclamations through the hoarding are seen as the first steps of open aggression by Mayawati against the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre.

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