A strong foundation for the formation of a National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre would be laid in Uttar Pradesh, Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh Amit Shah said here on Thursday.
“For the BJP, the route to the Centre will pass through Lucknow,” he told reporters on Thursday.
On the possibility of his mentor and party’s central election committee chairman Narendra Modi contesting from the State, he said candidates from U.P. had not been decided.
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Ram temple
On whether Ram temple was on the party’s agenda, he said it had not denied that a temple was not on its agenda. On the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s decision in Hardwar on Wednesday to start an agitation for building a Ram temple in Ayodhya, he said the proposal would be reviewed by the BJP.
Mr. Shah, who held a series of meetings with party office-bearers, legislature party members and senior leaders over the past two days, said that from the feedback he got the State wanted a change. The Centre had failed to adopt a zero-tolerance policy on issues concerning internal security, specifically threats from Maoists and terrorists, he alleged.
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He said the UPA government had lost the moral and constitutional right to remain in power. He accused the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party of assisting the Congress-led UPA government in its “misrule.”
Vote-bank politics
Mr. Shah slammed the SP government for its move to withdraw cases against the terror accused and charged Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav with pursuing vote-bank politics. He said resentment was building up against the (Muslim) appeasement policy of the State government. He rejected the allegations that his entry in U.P. had led to communalism. “Communalism is on account of withdrawal of terror cases.”