New Delhi: The BJP alleged on Tuesday that the recent rise in the political strength of ‘do ladke’, a reference to Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, has resulted in criminals getting emboldened in Uttar Pradesh.

BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi accused the Samajwadi Party of sheltering criminals, and targeted the Yadav-led party over the arrest of two persons allegedly associated with it on the charges of rape and attempt to rape.

Not only the SP has been giving “cover fire” to criminals but the members of the opposition INDIA bloc are helping each other defend criminal elements of their alliance partners as well, he told reporters.

“Those associated with two boys have been committing crimes. The audacity of criminals has been rising since the increase in the strength of these two boys,” he said in an apparent reference to Congress leader Gandhi and Yadav, whose alliance outperformed the BJP-led NDA in Uttar Pradesh in the recent Lok Sabha polls.

It is in the DNA of the Samajwadi Party to stand with criminals, he said, in a swipe at the regional party’s demand for the DNA testing to prove the guilt of the accused in one of the cases.

The BJP leader also targeted West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for her stand that she will transfer the case of rape and murder of a doctor in a government-run hospital in Kolkata to the CBI if the local police did not solve the case till Sunday.