Fired up over their party’s comeback trail in UP after nearly two decades, Congressmen on Saturday turned the heat on UP Chief Minister Mayawati at a function to felicitate their newly elected MPs, threatening to launch a statewide stir if their demand for a CBI probe into the arson incident at UPCC chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi’s residence was not met.

The function was attended by 15 Congress MPs from the state, among them five Union ministers, AICC general secretary in-charge of UP Digvijay Singh, the UPCC chief, party MLAs and office-bearers. The six MPs from the state who could not attend the function included Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.

Alleging that the attack was carried out at the behest of the state government, Singh said Congress workers would hit the streets if the demand for a CBI probe was not fulfilled.

Speakers at the function also took on the Mayawati government on several other issues like power crisis, alleged indifference to drought-hit areas, poor law and order situation and construction of statues.

“The central government is helping the state government in every possible way but the funds are diverted to construction of statues. We are not against constructing statues in honour of Dalits, but she (Mayawati) is constructing statues of herself,” Singh said, alleging that the state had not made any concrete efforts to increase power production or inform the Centre about the drought situation.

Jitin Prasada, the Union MoS for Petroleum, said, “The Lok Sabha election was just a trailer. The real fight will begin now. We have begun our movement against the state government and youngsters would play an important role.”

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