Lucknow, Dec 2 (IANS) Barely a year after she sacked nearly 20,000 policemen, appointed by her predecessor Mulayam Singh Yadav, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has announced her government will recruit 158,000 personnel for the state police force. Making this announcement at a press conference here Tuesday evening, Mayawati said: “The need to fill the shortage in our police force was realised after I got a survey carried out by my officials earlier this year.”

“It is quite evident that the existing strength of the police force was grossly insufficient to meet the needs of the state’s huge population,” she said.

In the light of her own allegations about large-scale bungling in the recruitment undertaken during Yadav’s regime, she made it a point to add that the government would set up a special recruitment board to ensure a fair and transparent recruitment process.

Speaking on her government’s plans to combat terrorism, she said her government has also decided to expand the network of the state Anti-Terrorist Squad.

As such, ATS will now have four new zones with their respective headquarters at Kanpur, Allahabad, Gorakhpur and Lucknow.

Blaming the Mumbai terror attack on the Congress party’s failure, she sought resignation of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the centre. “The UPA government must step down and make way for a regime that can secure the lives of common Indians”, she said.