bjp: Akhilesh compared Jinnah with Sardar Patel to belittle backwards: UP BJP chief | India News – Times of India

LUCKNOW- The recent controversy over Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav comparing Muslim League leader and Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah with Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel took a curious turn with Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh calling it a “deliberate attempt” to “belittle the backwards”, mainly the Kurmis.
“He (Akhilesh) deliberately took the name of Jinnah. The remark was made during a programme organised on the birth anniversary of Sardar Patel (on October 31). He knew there would be some backward leaders from the Kurmi community. It was done to insult Patel and the backward community,” Singh said, in an exclusive interview with TOI.
Singh’s attack marks BJP’s fresh attempt to thwart SP bid to consolidate the other backward classes (OBC), the community which holds the electoral key in the UP assembly elections due early next year. The BJP has been seeking to cement the backward bloc, which accounts for 40% of the electorate in poll-bound UP. Experts interpreted Singh’s observation as the one to draw a contrast between the political interests of the backwards, specially non-Yadav OBC and the Muslims.
Singh also brushed off SP’s endeavour to position itself squarely against the BJP as nothing but a “dream to attain power”, which would “never come true” just through “minority appeasement”. Citing the reported instance of meeting between Akhilesh and father of former JNU student Umar Khalid, Singh said that “politics of SP revolves around terrorism, SIMI and naxalism”.
Khalid’s father, Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas, who is the president of Welfare Party of India (WPI), had met Yadav on October 2. The WPI had announced support for the Samajwadi Party for the state assembly election.
Singh further hit out at the SP accusing it of running the government with the help of criminals and mafia. ‘One may ask any builder or a contractor, just a call from SP leaders would get them a work contract,” the UP BJP boss charged.
Insisting that the gathbandhan of mafia and criminals has been “shattered” by chief minister Yogi Adityanath, Singh said that most of the criminal leaders of SP are behind the bars. “This is happening for the first time that they are facing the heat. Else they have been enjoying all the privileges irrespective of whoever was in power,” he observed.
Dismissing the large gathering in Akhilesh’s ongoing Vijay Rath Yatra as mere “bheed bhaad (crowd)”, Singh said that it is making the SP chief think that he is contesting for the “number one spot” in UP and will come back to power. “This is not going to happen because of the popularity of PM Narendra Modi and CM Yogi,” he said, maintaining that the BJP has taken care of all sections of society, including Dalits, poor, farmers, youth or women by implementing various public welfare schemes without discrimination.