UP elections 2017: BJP MP Yogi Adityanath says Akhilesh Yadav must be removed from power
Yogi Adityanath, lawmaker and top BJP crowd puller, today said Western Uttar Pradesh will "turn into Kashmir and will see a mass exodus," if Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party is not removed from power. The sensitive region, which saw deadly riots three years ago, votes next week in the first phase of the UP assembly elections.
The BJP alleges that over 300 Hindu families have fled their homes in Kairana, a Muslim-dominated Western UP town, which is denied by the Samajwadi Party government that says an inquiry has revealed no mass immigration based on religious grounds. Yogi Adityanath alleged today that the number is actually much more and that the SP was suppressing facts.
"Kairana is just one town. There are dozens of villages where an exodus is happening. Women were being harassed and so families were forced to leave. Please go there and see. They don't register FIRs in crimes committed on Hindus," the five-time MP from Gorakhpur told NDTV.
He said the comparison with Kashmir, where 3.5 lakh Pandits left the Valley in fear in the 1990s, is fair because, "if left unchecked, the situation will be similar."
BJP chief Amit Shah has brought up the issue repeatedly during his campaign in UP and while releasing the party's manifesto last week promised a white paper, saying the BJP, if elected, would make government officials responsible for the safe return of the "migrated population."
Both regional heavyweights the Samajwadi Party and Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party as well as the Congress have accused the BJP of polarising voters, especially in Western UP where 62 people were killed in the 2013 communal violence. Months later, the BJP swept UP in the general elections winning 71 of the state's 80 Lok Sabha seats. Among the winners were leaders like Hukum Singh, who first made the Kairana allegation and who is accused of inciting violence in Muzaffarnagar, the epicentre of the riots.
Yogi Adityanath was speaking today in Sikanderabad, in Bulandshahr and an area that has a Muslim and Dalit majority population. While the Bulandshahr gang-rape figured in his speech, he used the metaphor of rape more in the context of crimes along communal lines and not just a law and order problem. "It is not just Hindus but Dalits are also leaving. So we must vote out these people who practice identity politics," the 44-yer-old priest-politician alleged.
Some days ago the controversial lawmaker had raised eyebrows by welcoming US President Donald Trump's "Muslim ban". Today, he played that down but made no attempt to conceal his admiration for America's new president.
Yogi Adityanath's army of supporters in eastern UP have put the BJP on notice demanding that he be named presumptive Chief Minister in UP, where elections will be held in seven phases and votes will be counted on March 11. They have threatened to field candidates to spoil the chances of the BJP's official nominees. But Mr Adityanath denies any rebellion.
"I don't care about such posts. I am for ideology and only here to defeat the SP and BSP," he said.
Rebel or not, Yogi Adityanath clearly has star status in the BJP - the party has assigned him a chopper to zip across the state to campaign, as the party attempts to win the state back after 15 years.