Amit Shah attacks SP, Channi remark
Home minister takes a jibe at Samajwadi Party for bringing Mulayam to rally, targets Priyanka over Punjab CM’s quip
: Union home minister Amit Shah on Thursday took pot-shots at the Samajwadi Party (SP) for bringing its founder Mulayam Singh Yadav to address a rally in Karhal, from where SP president and Mulayam’s son Akhilesh Yadav is contesting his first Uttar Pradesh assembly election.
Shah also hit out at Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra for allegedly clapping when Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi made the remark “don’t let UP, Bihar and Delhi ‘ke bhaiye (brothers) enter Punjab.”
Shah was addressing rallies in the SP stronghold of Karhal in Mainpuri district and the Mohammadi assembly constituency in Lakhimpur Kheri district. Mainpuri district goes to polls in the third phase on February 20 and Lakhimpur Kheri in the fourth phase on February 23.
He urged voters in Karhal to let the lotus bloom there so that it could wipe out the Samajwadi Party in the whole state and lead to the BJP retaining power in UP.
“SP candidate Akhilesh Yadav had claimed while filing his nomination that he would return to Karhal only after the counting day on March 10 as his supporters alone would ensure his victory. But he had to come again to Karhal on the sixth day, sensing defeat and even troubled his ageing father Mulayam Singh Yadav to campaign for him. If such is the beginning, what will be the result?” Shah said.
Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, who is in his 80s, made his first appearance in the ongoing election campaign on Thursday, addressing a meeting for his son Akhilesh Yadav only a few kilomtres from the venue of Shah’s rally in Karhal. Shah backed BJP candidate and Union minister SP Singh Baghel, who was allegedly attacked while going for his campaign on Tuesday evening (February 15).
Shah sought votes for Baghel, saying he could ensure the participation of all the backward classes. In his address, Amit Shah asked the crowd if the gathering wants to have a BJP regime in Uttar Pradesh with 300-plus seats. When the gathering answered in the affirmative, the home minister said it can be achieved through an electoral victory in Karhal.
“The idea is to have the lotus blooming in Karhal and this alone will wipe out the Samajwadi Party from the state,” said Shah in his appeal to defeat Akhilesh Yadav in Karhal.
“Our candidate SP Singh Baghel is a Union minister with all the facilities. There was no need for him to come to Karhal and the contest assembly election. But he expressed the determination not to allow regime of goondas and mafias to rule the state,” he said.
Continuing his attack on the main opposition party, Shah said, “SP (Samajwadi Party), in fact, denotes S for sampatti (property) to be acquired and P for pariwarwad (dynastic) because, at one time, 45 members of the Saifai family were at different posts during the SP regime in UP.”
He criticised Akhilesh Yadav for terming the Covid vaccine a BJP vaccine.
“It was this vaccine which saved Indians during third wave,” Shah said.
He alleged that the Saifai family thinks only about themselves and cares nothing even for others of their own caste (Yadavs) or the other backward classes. Saifai is the ancestral village of the Samajwadi Party’s Yadav family.
In Mohammadi, Shah slammed Congress leaders for berating the people of UP even as he reached out to the farmers stating that if elected to power, the BJP government would ensure farmers don’t have to pay power bills. The BJP’s manifesto promises free power to farmers for irrigation purchases.
“Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi are fourth generation leaders of the Congress. Yesterday, I was watching on TV how in Punjab their chief minister was saying don’t let UP’s bhaiyas enter the state and sister Priyanka was clapping. There can’t be a bigger insult to UP than this,” Shah said.
“For years, they kept getting elected from Amethi and Rae Bareli, for years they kept getting elected from Prayagraj and Phoolpur and today they say that they won’t let people from UP enter Punjab,” Shah said.
After kicking up a row with his ‘bhaiya’ remark, the Punjab CM had clarified that the remark was targeted against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal but Shah quickly seized the opportunity to step up the attack against the Congress.
“This country is run by the constitution. I want to ask the Congress had Rahul Gandhi not lost from Amethi and headed towards the south (Wayanad in Kerala), then would they have the courage to make such remarks? For years, this family (Gandhis) had adopted a policy of divide and rule,” Shah said.