Yogi Adityanath: Western UP situation like J&K

Lucknow: Praising President Donald Trump’s temporary ban on citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, BJP MP Yogi Adityanath said on Tuesday that similar action was needed to check terrorism in India. Further, carrying forward the BJP’s new game plan to polarise voters in the UP Assembly elections, he referred to the exodus in Kairana and warned that if the situation was not “contained”, the region would hurtle in the direction of Kashmir in the 1990s.

Comparing the present situation in UP to the time when “Kashmiri Pandits were terrorised and forced to leave their homes”, he said, “On January 19, 1990, Hindus had to migrate collectively from Kashmir. A massacre took place. The honour of mothers and sisters were openly trampled upon… Western Uttar Pradesh is heading in the same direction as  Kashmir. Crime, corruption and goondaraj are at their peak in Uttar Pradesh. The situation in Kairana and other districts is similar to that of Kashmir back then and the failure to act shows that the criminals are emboldened,” he said at various rallies across the state.

The situation, he claimed, was especially grim in Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut and Ghaziabad. He accused the ruling Samajwadi Party and Mayawati’s BSP of allowing it to happen with their pro-minority policies over the years. “I find western UP unsafe. We do not face a threat in eastern UP because there we use the sort of language that people understand and set them straight,” he said. He further said that the BJP was committed not to let this happen anymore.

Kicking up a row, BJP MP Hukum Singh had in June last year claimed that close to 350 Hindus had left Kairana over alleged threats and extortion by criminal elements belonging to a particular community. Mr Singh, however, had later done a U-turn saying it was not a communal matter. He had alleged that the ruling Samajwadi Party was preventing action against anti-social elements responsible for the exodus since they happened to be its supporters — a charge rejected by the state government. Sticking to Mr Singh’s remarks, Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday insisted that these should  should not be seen as communal. “I have not named any caste, community or religion. We are not dividing  people on the grounds of religion. It is not communal politics,” he maintained.