Yogi leads BJP’s attack on Muslims
Unfazed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attempts to send a positive signal to the minority community, the Hindutva hawks continue to target it. BJP leader Yogi Adityanath seems to be leading the bandwagon with his repeated attacks on Muslims. Mr Adityanath, one of the BJP leaders entrusted to lead the party campaign in Uttar Pradesh, has said that “riots occur” in areas dominated by Muslims.
Recently, Congress leader Shehzad Poonawalla lodged a complaint against the Gorakhpur MP for sharing the dais from where members of a youth brigade, Hindu Yuva Vahini, launched a vicious attack on the minority community. In a TV interview, Mr Adityanath claimed that “riots happen wherever they are more than 10 per cent in numbers while there is no place for non-Muslims where they are more than 35 per cent”.
Defending his provocative speeches, Mr Adityanath said Hindus will reply “in the same language” if they are subjected to attacks or forcible conversions. The BJP has tasked him to lead the campaign for the upcoming byelections in UP.
He told India TV that there are three categories of places where they occur. “In places where there are 10 to 20 per cent minorities, stray communal incidents take place. Where there are 20 to 35 per cent of them, serious communal riots take place and where they are more than 35 per cent, there is no place for non-Muslims,” he is said to have said, according to a media release by the TV channel.
“I have said, if you ( minorities) kill one of us, do not expect that you will remain safe... If the other side does not stay in peace, we will teach them how to stay in peace,” Mr Adityanath was quoted by the TV channel as saying.
Incidentally, he is under attack after two CDs recently surfaced in which he is shown making inflammatory speeches. Justifying his rabble- rousing remarks, the MP said, “Whatever I had then said was conditional. If the other is a danav ( devil), not a manav ( human), then one has to reply. If I have a mala ( rosary) in one hand, I also carry a bhala ( javelin) in the other.”
He also alleged that “love jihad”, a term coined by Hindutva activists to protest alleged organised conversion of Hindu girls, is an “international conspiracy” against India.