Farmers Movement Archive

Opposition's minority appeasement a plot to trigger riots: UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh

LUCKNOW: UP BJP chief Swatantra Dev Singh on Sunday said, Opposition’s concerted minority appeasement was nothing but a “well-planned conspiracy to trigger communal riots”, ahead of assembly elections next year. Singh specifically trained his guns at Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who is scheduled to visit Varanasi, PM Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency, on October 10. “The state has not witnessed a single communal riot in over four years of BJP rule. Priyanka Gandhi kya danga karwana chahti hain? Unhein tushtikaran ki rajneeti band karni hogi (Priyanka should stop politics of appeasement),” he said, while speaking to TOI. He said, under BJP rule both Hindu and Muslims have been living in harmony and will continue to do so. The UP BJP president maintained politics of appeasement and compromising on national interests can only push the nation off the development grid. The Congress leadership has been calling the nationalist outfit like RSS as an organisation of ‘Hindu aatankwadi (terrorists),” he said. A strong critic of Congress, Singh had earlier, slammed the Congress leadership for deliberately framing Article 370 to appease minorities in Jammu and Kashmir. Singh’s attack came on a day when BJP faced an electoral setback in Bhabanipur bypolls in West Bengal, where CM Mamata Banerjee defeated BJP candidate Priyanka Tibrewal by a huge margin. The ruling party also found itself in a spot over a raging farmers’ agitation in Lakhimpur Kheri against new farm laws. At the same time, BJP took to twitter, saying the opposition was bound to find itself in political wilderness in the forthcoming 2022 UP assembly elections given its “past experiences” of unsuccessful alliances which were formed to stop the saffron party’s juggernaut. In an apparent reference to the coming together of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in 2017 assembly elections, BJP said the two ‘yuva netas do not even talk to each other these days”. Likewise, in 2019, ‘Babua’ (Akhilesh) and Bua (Mayawati) had joined hands, but now they share a bitter relationship. BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said, the Opposition was worried about its electoral fate in 2022 state polls. “They are unable to understand how to ensure BJP’s defeat. The entire opposition will be restricted to under 50 seats and BJP will register a win on 350 seats,” he said. BJP’s attack comes amid desertion in BSP camp in favour of the SP with former BSP Rajya Sabha MP and national general secretary, Veer Singh, defecting to SP camp on Sunday.

The Times of India

2021-10-04

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