BJP national president J.P. Nadda claimed that the people of Uttar Pradesh have not yet forgotten the sting of Muzaffarnagar riots and the migration from Kairana, and accused SP chief Akhilesh Yadav of indulging in appeasement when in power. He made the comments while addressing public meetings in Hapur and Moradabad ahead of the UP Assembly elections. "The people have not yet forgotten the sting of Muzaffaragar riots and the migration from Kairana. The Supreme Court had reprimanded the SP government that these riots were the result of government's failure," Nadda said.
The BJP has been bringing up the communally sensitive Kairana migration in particular while campaigning in Western Uttar Pradesh.
Nadda also attacked Yadav, accusing him of indulging in appeasement politics. He claimed that a cleric who was accused of being involved in the riots and who should have been punished was invited by then chief minister Yadav to Lucknow as a guest and added that this was SP's appeasement politics.
Accusing Yadav of adopting a biased attitude towards the riots, the BJP president said people were forced to migrate from Kairana under his government. Praising the Yogi Adityanath government, he said today there are neither riots, nor mafia in the state. "This the difference," Nadda said and appealed to the people to remember it when they go out to vote.
In Western Uttar Pradesh, Home Minister Amit Shah's political messaging focused on 'law and order' and 'ending appeasement', as he visited Kairana, notorious for its alleged "exodus of Hindus" before 2017. Shah on Saturday visited the affected families who had since returned, as he began his door-to-door election campaign. Asserting that the people of Kairana were no longer living in fear, Shah said a satisfactory law and order situation is the primary condition for development and the Yogi Adityanath government has ensured this in Uttar Pradesh.
Shah is focusing his campaign in Western Uttar Pradesh, the region which contributed the most to the protest over the recently repealed farm laws. Bhartiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait hails from this region. The choice of Kairana for Shah's first political programme in Uttar Pradesh after the assembly poll dates were announced is significant. In the run-up to the last assembly elections, the BJP had claimed that several Hindu families left Kairana after facing threats from criminals—an allegation contested by others. Adityanath had also invoked the alleged exodus during his recent visit to that town. "There was a time when riots used to happen here, youths were killed and there used to be curfew for days. There was a tendency to file one-sided cases. Now, due to the BJP government, there are no riots," Shah had said in December 2021.
-Inputs from PTI
