BJP president Amit Shah on Thursday hit out at the Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh, saying every time the party comes to power, it becomes government of “goons”.
Addressing thousands of the party’s booth workers from 19 districts in Meerut in preparation for Assembly elections early next year, Mr. Shah raked up the SP’s flip-flop over the merger with the Quami Ekta Dal (QEM). Mr Shah said, “Akhileshji, you should not do this drama of not having an alliance with Mukhtar [Ansari, head of the QEM]. SP is full of Mukhtar, Ateeque and Azam.”
Mr. Shah termed the merger and the ‘de-merger’ later as a “desperate political drama” to arrest the sagging image of Chief Minster Akhilesh Yadav.
“Who all will you throw out? If the goons were to be thrown out of the SP, the whole party will be left with no one,” the BJP chief said. He also poked fun at the power struggle in the Yadav family and said, “The three-and-a-half chief ministers have failed miserably in maintaining law and order in the State.”
Mr. Shah also raised the issue of migration from Kairana but avoided terming it communal unlike his initial stand where he had said a Hindu exodus was taking place.
“There was some migration from Kairana. BJP raised the issue. They ( SP government) said migration happened due to law and order. Mr. Akhilesh, now you tell me, is U.P.’s law and order the responsibility of Barack Obama? It is your responsibility and nobody else’s. Kiarana’s exodus is a serious issue and the BJP won’t take it lightly,” he added.
Amid enthusiatic chants of “Bharat Mata ki jai”, the BJP president talked about a “vision of U.P.’s development”.
‘There’s democracy in BJP’
Highlighting the “democratic structure” of the BJP, Mr. Shah said: “Only a grandchild of Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav can ecome the party’s president, there is no place for ordinary workers. In the BJP, a normal booth worker like you goes on to become its president.”
Listing a number of schemes and the funds allocated, Mr. Shah alleged that while the BJP-led NDA government was sending money to the State government for developmental programmes, the funds were not reaching the common people.
