Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday blamed Chief Minister Adityanath’s behaviour for the murder of a police constable in a stone-pelting incident in Ghazipur, ANI reported.

“This incident took place because the chief minister, whether he is in the Assembly or on a stage, he only talks about violence,” Yadav claimed. “Sometimes the police doesn’t know who to beat up, other times the public doesn’t know who to beat up.”

The Samajwadi Party chief said “Adityanath is advocating his ‘thoko neeti [encounter policy]’ everywhere,” PTI reported. “Due to this, there is a trend among the police officials that they undertake encounters when they anticipate that they can be transferred. Their acts are emulated by their subordinates.” There have been many instances of crimes against women, Yadav added.

“This time, the government is not of the Bharatiya Janata Party, but of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh,” said the former chief miniser. “People in the government had taken two oaths – one of the Constitution, the other of the RSS. But these oaths are contradictory to each other.”

Yadav said the BJP is yet to begin fulfilling the promises it made in its election manifesto a year and half ago. He alleged that hundreds of thousands of peasants have quit farming and are working as labourers because of this. Yadav also asserted that the country will get a new prime minister in 2019.

On Saturday, the Congress lashed out at the Uttar Pradesh government for the constable Suresh Vats’s death, claiming that no one was safe in Adityanath’s “jungle rule”.

“In Adityanath’s grand jungle rule, neither the people are safe, nor the police,” Congress’s chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala tweeted in Hindi. “Today in Ghazipur after Modi ji’s rally, a mob mercilessly killed police constable Suresh Vats.”

He added: “Democracy in BJP rule = mobocracy.”

Union minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday expressed regret at the incident. “People tell me miscreants prefer to stay behind bars, they are afraid of coming out,” he told reporters. “This kind of situation has been seen for the first time. It’s unfortunate that the Bulandshahr and Ghazipur incidents happened, some elements are trying to disturb the environment.”

Vats, 48, was killed after a protesting mob began throwing stones at police personnel trying to disperse them. At least four persons were injured, including two police constables and two civilians. They are in a stable condition.

The protestors allegedly belonged to the Nishad Party, who had staged demonstrations earlier in the day to demand reservations for the Nishad community. They gathered again in the evening to demand the release of four workers who had been arrested when police tried to disperse them in the earlier protest, reports said.

Several vehicles with people coming back from a rally by Prime Minister Narendra Modi got stuck in the blockade, reported The Hindu. The rally was held just about 15 km away hours earlier.

Sanjay Nishad, president of the Nishad Party, demanded a detailed police investigation into the incident, and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to defame his outfit. Nishad Party leader and Gorakhpur MP Praveen Nishad told The Hindu denied his outfit’s role in the violence.

Adityanath on Saturday directed the district magistrate and the senior superintendent of police of the district to penalise the accused. His office also announced a compensation of Rs 40 lakh for the wife of constable and Rs 10 lakh for his parents.

This is the second incident of a police official dying in a mob attack in the state this month. On December 3, Inspector Subodh Kumar Singh had been killed in Bulandshahr district by protestors over alleged cow slaughter.