Yogi calls SP, Cong ‘jaati ke saudagar’ amid Opp’s demand for caste census

“These people will come seeking votes from the backdoor. Do not allow such people to grow once again because they always pose a threat to our rashtra dharma (duty towards the nation),” said Adityanath.

With Baliyan facing ire from the local Thakur community, Adityanath urged people to forget “personal differences” and vote for “rashtra dharma”.

“The people who are misleading you are the same people who put Sanjeev Baliyan and Sangeet Som in jail and put the people here under curfew. Today, I have come to tell you that there may be differences of opinion with any person but ideology and nationalism are paramount for us. There can be no compromise with this. We will sacrifice ourselves for the rashtra dharma,” said Adityanath.

While all does not seem well between Sangeet Som and Baliyan and their supporters, Som, a Thakur face of the area and BJP’s two-time MLA, who lost the last election to Samajwadi Party’s Atul Pradhan, was on the dais with Adityanath.

Adityanath’s rally came in the wake of a mahapanchayat held in Saharanpur’s Nanauta on April 7 where slogans were raised against the BJP. Participants said the Rajput or Thakur community was facing political hatred and its representation was being curtailed as the BJP did not give tickets to Thakurs in western UP. The next mahapanchayat will be held at Kheda village in Meerut on April 16.

Earlier in the day, Adityanath flew to Kathua in Jammu where he campaigned for BJP candidate and Union minister Jitendra Singh. Addressing a rally there, the UP chief minister hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for abrogating Article 370, claiming “it brought an end to terrorism”.   “Now, there is an all-round development, whether it is Delhi’s Lal Quila (Red Fort) or Srinagar’s Lal Chowk. There is enthusiasm and excitement in Jammu and Kashmir, which has now been connected with the mainstream of development,” he said.

Invoking Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Adityanath said: “When it is about Jammu and Kashmir, the slogans of Independent India ‘Jahaan Huye Balidaan Mookerjee, Woh Kashmir Humara Hai’ echo… Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee sacrificed himself for the fulfillment of this dream. However, none of the successive governments could take a decision in this regard.”

He asked people to question Congress as to who were responsible for the partition of the country. It was Congress who made an “unfortunate division’’ of the country a day ahead of the 1947 independence, he added.

Listing various works initiated by Modi government during the last 10 years, Adityanath said that 80 crore of the 140 crore people in the country are getting free ration for the last four years. “While this scheme of free ration is going to continue for another five years in the country, Pakistan which got separated from India in 1947 is visiting the world with a begging bowl,” he said. “Such has been the position of Pakistan that even if a cracker bursts in India, it begins clarifying its position that it is not involved in it,” he added.

Back in Muzaffarnagar, Adityanath recalled his Kathua visit and said: “I addressed an election meeting in the Kashmir valley before coming here. There is calm and peace. Was it possible to hold such a peaceful meeting there 10 years ago? The Valley had been ravaged by terrorism… that thrived during the past 70 years. It was the charismatic leadership of Narendra Modi that made the abrogation of Article 370 possible and now a stream of development is flowing there like in Uttar Pradesh. The people there want to be part of the mainstream of democracy. This could happen only because a leader like Modi-ji is taking the country on the path of development,” he said.

The CM reiterated that under the leadership of Modi, the country was on the path to becoming a “superpower”.