Questioning Mulayam Singh Yadav's statement in Agra Tuesday that the state government had done well to control the riots, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said that with 38 dead and several injured and the army being called in for the first time in two decades, "what else was administrative failure?"

"These are one of the worst communal clashes in recent times and yet the Samajwadi Party chief chose to pat the state government. It leaves little to be said," the BJP spokesman said.He also criticised Mulayam Singh Yadav for calling the communal clashes a "caste conflict".