Yogi Adityanath was barred from campaigning for 72 hours for his controversial comments (File)
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday called a Samajwadi party candidate "Babur ki Aulad" or "Babur's child". The BJP's star campaigner made the remark on a day he returned to campaigning for his party after the Election Commission imposed a 72-hour ban on him for making a comment on communal lines.
Yogi Adityanath, the BJP's prominent Hindutva face, was campaigning in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal, when he claimed Shafiqur Rahman Barq, the SP candidate, had once told him that he was the successor of Mughal emperor Babar, news agency ANI reported.
"Once I was in parliament, I asked the SP candidate, who was also an MP, as to who were his predecessors, he said he was the successor of Babur. I was surprised," Yogi Adityanath claimed.
"On the one hand, there is a candidate from a party which developed places linked to Baba Bhim Rao Ambedkar and Gautam Budhha. On the other hand, there is an opposition candidate who calls himself a ''Babur ki Aulad''," Yogi Adityanath was quoted by news agency ANI.
In an apparent reference to the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party-Rashtriya Janata Dal candidate, Yogi Adityanath said: "The person who does not want to sing Vande Matram(national song), who feels discomfort in garlanding baba sahab (BR Ambedkar), is not eligible to get your votes."
Yogi Adityanath, responding to BSP chief Mayawati's appeal to the Muslim community in which she had asked them not to split their votes, had said that people who had faith in "Bajrangbali" or Lord Hanuman would vote for his party. Within days of making the remark, he was barred by the Election Commission from campaigning for 72 hours. Mayawati was also barred for 48 hours for her vote appeal.
Yogi Adityanath had been reprimanded for referring to the Indian Army as "Modiji ki Sena", or Prime Minister Narendra Modi's army, at an election rally in Uttar Pradesh. "Be careful in your utterances in the future," the poll body had said.
With inputs from ANI