Yogi calls it snake, mole joining hands

GORAKHPUR: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday said the coming together of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for the Lok Sabha bypolls in Gorakhpur and Phulpur was like a snake and a mole joining hands in the face of adversity.

Elections to the Bjp-held seats — vacated by Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Mauyra — will take place on March 11.

“Their (SP and BSP) condition is like snake and mole, who are running here and there to save their lives. I pity them but they have looted the state and played with the future of young people and farmers,” Adityanath said at a public meeting in Jeetpur, which is part of the Pipraich assembly segment of the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency.

BSP chief Mayawati had indicated on Sunday that her party would support the SP — once a bitter rival — in the bypolls and the biennial elections to the Rajya Sabha and the legislative council. But she had made it clear that the understanding should not be read as an alliance for the 2019 polls.

The CM said that non-bjp governments had “dishonoured” people, sometimes by putting restrictions on religious discourses in Ayodhya and sometimes by prohibiting religious programmes, adding that he had issued special directives on Holi despite the festival coinciding with Friday prayers at mosques.

“People said, ‘how will we manage Jumma (Friday prayers) and Holi, which are falling on the same day’. We said Jumma comes 52 times a year, but Holi comes once a year. We asked to shift the prayer time and gave full freedom to celebrate Holi,” the CM said.