Will not allow UP to become Gujarat: SP

LUCKNOW: The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Thursday said the stance and intent that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) was showing by insisting on taking out the 84-kos yatra from Ayodhya would not succeed. It said the Rashtriya Sawyamsewak Sangh (RSS) would lose its credibility in an attempt to salvage the sinking Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that ‘could not even emerge as the main opposition party in the last Assembly elections’.

“The SP government will not permit any such yatra in public interest. It will not let Uttar Pradesh become a Gujarat,” said state spokesperson of the party and jail minister Rajendra Chowdhary.

In a statement issued on Thursday evening, he said while the other parties were trying to fan communal fire because of the coming elections, the SP was committed to secularism and its government would maintain law and order.

“The BJP, which is aware that it fate would be no less worse than its Assembly elections performace, is once again attempting to whip up communal sentiments through its parent organization RSS. The BJP has no issues to go with in the Lok Sabha polls, so the RSS has come to its rescue raking up communal issues by using saints-seers as pawns,” he said

“There is no evidence of any tradition of holding any Chaurasi Kos Prikrama in the past. All are aware that no parikrama is held in Ayodhay in AugustSeptember. It is clear that the proposed yatra is political and not religious. It is a joint political conspiracy of VHP, RSS and BJP to polarize votes in the Lok Sabha elections,” Chowdhary said ading, “This was the kind of language the saffron brigade was speaking before 1992 that led to the Babri masjid demolition.”

Attacking the Congress, Chowdhary said: “Then also it was the Congress government at the center which kept mum the way it was doing now. Perhaps, the Congress is seeing some opportunity in BJP’s ulterior motives.”