BJP President Amit Shah was addressing a rally at Allahabad today.
Highlights
- Amit Shah at Allahabad rally said Kairana incident is a shocking event.
- BJP has said it will send a fact-finding team this week to Kairana.
- Opposition have accused BJP of polarising voters ahead of UP polls.
Only the BJP can defeat the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, party chief Amit Shah said at a massive rally in Allahabad today, exhorting the state not to take "Kairana lightly."
"UP should not take Kairana lightly, it is a shocking event...the Kairana exodus is no ordinary event," said Mr Shah.
BJP lawmaker from UP Hukum Singh has released a list of 346 Hindus, who he claims have fled their homes in Kairana, a Muslim-majority town in western Uttar Pradesh, because of "threats and extortion by criminal elements belonging to a particular community."
The BJP has said it will send a fact-finding team this week to Kairana, which is not far from Muzaffarnagar, the epicentre of deadly riots that killed over 60 people in 2013.
The Congress and Samajwadi Party have accused the BJP of attempting to polarise voters by raising Kairana months before assembly elections are held in Uttar Pradesh. They have earlier alleged that the BJP used the Muzaffarnagar riots to polarize voters ahead of the national election of 2014, which it swept in UP, winning 71 of 80 Lok Sabha seats.
Among those who had won a parliament seat was Hukum Singh, who is accused of inciting communal violence in Muzaffarnagar.
"I have a report which says that the BJP is spreading rumours that the Samajwadi Party compelled people to leave Kairana... the BJP should not do politics on petty issues," said Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav today.
Officials are now going door to door in Shamli district, of which Kairana is a part, to verify the BJP's claims. They said they had found that about 35 families had left Kairana in search of better jobs in neighbouring Haryana, most of them 10 to 15 years ago.
"This is not keeping elections in mind. We are not trying to polarize. We are talking only about development. When they want to polarize on the basis of caste and religion, they allege this," said senior central minister M Venkaiah Naidu of the BJP.