"Pigs, Vultures": Yogi Adityanath Targets Critics Of Maha Kumbh

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, days ahead of the grand finale of the Maha Kumbh, ripped into critics with a barbed speech at the state assembly. Kumbh, he said, was the repository where people found whatever they sought.

"Vultures got dead bodies. Pigs got filth... whereas sensitive people got a beautiful picture of relationships, traders got business, devotees got clean arrangements," he said. 

The reference was to the Opposition, whose leaders had kept a tight focus on the Kumbh -- especially after the stampede that killed 18 people and injured multiple others. 

"You (opposition) said that a particular caste was stopped from going there. No caste was stopped. Anybody with good intentions should go to Kumbh with respect, but whoever goes there with ill intentions will definitely suffer if he tries to create chaos in Kumbh," Yogi Adityanath added. 

"We have not played with faith like you. In your time, the chief minister did not have time to see and review the event and therefore he appointed a non-Sanatani as the in-charge of Kumbh," he said targetting Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav during his tenure as the  Chief Minister.

 "But here I myself was reviewing Kumbh and am still doing it. This is the reason that whoever went to the Kumbh in 2013 saw chaos, corruption, and pollution. There was no water fit for bathing in the Triveni of Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati. The prime minister of Mauritius is an example of this who refused to take a bath," he said.

Starting with the stampede earlier this month that killed 18 people to reports of fecal content in the Sangam waters, the Opposition has found much ammunition in the Kumbh to target the government. 

It was started by Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge, with his "tributes to the thousands who died in Kumbh," had sparked uproar in parliament. Samajwadi Party leader Jaya Bachchan claimed the bodies of the Mahakumbh stampede victims were "being thrown into the river".

Days later, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sparked fresh row, refering to the massive religious gathering as "Mrityu Kumbh". Her remarks had drawn support from even the Shankaracharya of Uttarakhand's Jyotish Peeth.

Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took on the critics of the ongoing Maha Kumbh mela, equating them to "foreign powers who try to weaken the country" and claimed they have "slave mentality".

Speaking at a public function in Madhya Pradesh, he said, "Nowadays we see that there is a group of leaders who mock religion, ridicule it, are engaged in dividing people and many times foreign powers also try to weaken the country and religion by supporting these people... People who hate the Hindu faith have been living in some phase or the other for centuries. People who have fallen into slave mentality keep attacking our faith, beliefs and temples, our religion, culture and principles".