Jab kursi hilti hai, wey communal ban jaate hai: Akhilesh slams Adityanath over singing Vande Matram

Maintaining that during his school days, he and his colleagues used to sing either Janna Ganna Manna, Vande Mataram or Sare Jahan Se Acha every day and it is already being sung at every Sainik School, Akhilesh said that if BJP leaders are such “rashtra bhakts” (patriotic) as they claim to be then they should first inform the people what was the area of the country in 2014 and what is it today.

Since the Central government and the BJP began celebrations to mark the 150th anniversary of the national song, penned by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, the UP chief minister has made several remarks, from calling the opposition to the national song as a “conspiracy to give birth to a new Jinnah”, to saying that those who oppose Vande Mataram are opposing Bharat Mata herself.

SP MP from Sambhal Zia-ur-Rahman Barq recently said that he has never sung the national song and it cannot be used to question his “deshbhakti (patriotism)”.

Clarifying his reluctance to sing the national song, Zia-ur-Rahman has said, “It (Vande Mataram) has a word which is against the preachings of Islam… We love the land of our country and are loyal towards it but we cannot pray before it as it is against our religion.”

‘EC officers working for BJP’

Alleging misuse of government machinery in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state, SP chief on Thursday alleged that officers being used by the Election Commission work for the BJP, and added that his “PDA prahari” would act as CCTV to monitor the exercise.

PDA refers to Pichda, Dalit and Alpsankhyak (OBC, Dalits and Muslims) – a word used by the SP chief.

Earlier this week, he had alleged large-scale irregularities in the ongoing revision of electoral rolls as he accused officials of acting under political pressure and questioned the poll panel’s preparedness in conducting the exercise.

‘Delhi blast an intel failure’

The former chief minister on Thursday called the Delhi car blast near the Red Fort an “intelligence failure”.  “Such an incident (Delhi blast) could only happen when the intelligence system fails. The people now want change,” he said.