Shah and Nitish share stage at Delhi poll rally

NEW DELHI: Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar came to north Delhi’s Burari on Sunday evening, where he held a joint rally with home minister Amit Shah. It was Shah’s first such joint address with Kumar, whose party Janata Dal (United) is an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Bihar and is contesting two seats in Delhi.

NEW DELHI: The sit-in protest led by elderly women and children in Shaheen Bagh resonated yet again in BJP leader and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s campaign Sunday.

“I would have reached here at 5pm, but I was delayed because of protests at Shaheen Bagh,” said Adityanath at a rally in Jaitpur area of Badarpur assembly constituency. Adityanath is a BJP star campaigner.

Starting and ending his speech with references to the protests, the chief minister said that people travelling to Noida, Greater Noida from Delhi were suffering as they had to spend hours in traffic. “Through Shaheen Bagh, an effort is being made to disrupt public order in Delhi,” he said, addressing a gathering on Durga Mandir road.

Hitting out at Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, he said that both opposed all the decisions of the Centr that were in national interest.

“Article 370 was abolished in Kashmir but it was Pakistan and Kejriwal who were pained by this move. You can see two people have opposed abrogation of article 370 and those were Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi. When the Congress had slyly added article 370 in 1952 then Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar had said that article 370 would become the reason of Algaavvad (Sepretism),” he said.

Yogi also accused Kejriwal of blocking public welfare schemes of the central government — Aayushman Bharat scheme and Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana — in Delhi because of political differences.

Speaking at another public meeting in Harkesh Nagar in Tughlakabad assembly segment, the BJP leader also said that the AAP government did not fulfil its promises such as school or cleaning water but polluted Yamuna and compelled everyone to cough like him. He also accused AAP of instigating riots.

The Aam Aadmi Party had earlier accused Adityanath of divisive politics.