Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Monday Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi did not even know how to sit properly in a mandir for puja. He was taking a dig at Mr. Gandhi for his temple visits.
“Uss bechare ko yeh tak nahi maloom hai ki mandir mein kaise baitha jata hai. (Poor fellow does not even know how to sit in a temple.) When he visited the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir [in Varanasi] he sat like he was performing namaz. The priest had to tell him that this is a temple, not a mosque,” Mr. Adityanath said, in response to a question at the Shikhar Sammelan organised here by ABP News on the urban body polls in UP.
Calling the Congress’s recent overtures in temples as pretence, Mr. Adityanath said it was under the UPA government that an affidavit was filed in the Supreme Court saying that Lord Ram and Lord Krishna were imaginary.
“If they are imaginary then what is Rahul Gandhi doing in temples? I am equally amused and saddened when he visits temples,” Mr. Adityanath said.
The Chief Minister also joked about talk of Mr. Gandhi’s imminent promotion as Congress chief, saying it was a pathway to a “Congress-mukt Bharat.”
“The Congress is fulfilling Gandhiji’s dream. To fulfil the dream of a Congress-mukt Bharat, it is necessary to have Rahul Gandhi,” Mr. Adityanath said.
The BJP leader, who is leading the charge in the local body polls, mocked opponents by saying that by not campaigning they at least had an opportunity to sit at home and “tweet.”
He apparently said it in response to Opposition leaders pointing fingers at him for his aggressive campaigning in the local polls, unusual for a CM.
His comment was directed at Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav who has used the social media to target him.
“They have already fled the field knowing they have no scope,” Mr. Adityanath said.
Mr. Yadav, who also participated in the same event, shot back at Mr. Adityanath for his jibes and said, “Tweet is a good thing.”
“The PM taught us how to tweet. We are learning something good from the BJP,” he said.
The former CM then made a sarcastic comeback at Mr. Adityanath, who is also a Hindu mahant, for his “tweet” jibe.
“I don’t know any mantras or rituals. If you ask me to get puja done, I will call a pujari. But yes, If anybody asks me to build an expressway, I will make it better than them,” he said.
Mr. Adityanath, while referring to the over 20 encounter deaths of alleged criminals in the State after he came to power, said “Operation Clean” was going on.
Such is the fear among the criminals, he said, that around 500 of them did not want to be released from jail.
The CM also referred to the contentious issue of the Kairana exodus, even though numerous accounts and reports had discredited the BJP’s narrative. He said after the BJP came to power, the traders in Kairana had returned to their home towns while the criminals were leaving the State.
