The Bharatiya Janata Party government has brought an end to the politics of appeasement in Uttar Pradesh, said Union Home Minister Amit Shah as he kicked off the party’s campaign for the upcoming Assembly elections in the State from Kairana on Saturday.
“Those responsible for the exodus of families from Kairana have been forced to migrate from the State,” he told reporters after the door-to-door campaign with BJP candidate Mriginka Singh.
Ms. Singh is the daughter of Hukum Singh, former BJP MP from Kairana, whose report on alleged exodus of Hindu families in 2016 had put the nondescript town on the national map.
“We have to defeat those who work for one particular caste or community,” said Mr. Shah.
A large number of party workers turned up for the first political programme of the BJP since the Election Commission announced the date of elections in the State. However, COVID protocol was brazenly violated, as groups of people were seen without masks and not observing social distancing.
Opposition parties have charged the district administration with discrimination in applying COVID guidelines.
Choice of candidates
In Bulandhahr, Chief Minister Yogi Aditynath said when the BJP government came to power in 2017, the first decision it took was to shut down illegal slaughterhouses, form an anti-Romeo squad for the safety of daughters, and waive loans of farmers. “When the Samajwadi Party came to power, it tried to drop the terror charges against those who attacked the Ram Janmabhoomi complex in Ayodhya,” he said.
A look at the list of candidates of the Samajwadi Party would give one an idea about its mindset that had not changed in the last ten years, Mr. Adityanath said. “While the BJP’s commitment to social justice reflects in its choice of candidates, 66% of them belonging to the Scheduled Castes and OBCs, the SP’s list is replete with history sheeters, gangsters, and those who spread anarchy,” he said, referring to SP-RLD alliance’s candidates from Kairana, Loni and Kithore.
Mr. Adityanath has been touring district hospitals in different districts of West UP to check arrangements to meet the anticipated third wave of COVID. After Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddha Nagar, he visited Aligarh and Bulandshahr on Saturday.
