Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah said on Sunday that his party would establish an “anti-Romeo squad” to protect girls in Uttar Pradesh if it is voted to power in the upcoming state elections.

“We have promised that BJP will form an anti-Romeo squad to save these girls,” Shah told Network 18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi. “This is not communal. It is the right of every girl to study in her own city or village. That is why it would not be correct to paint everything as communal.”

Shah’s statement harks back to the rumours of “love jihad” that his party had fanned through its campaign for the 2014 national election. It suggested that young Muslim men were being trained to court Hindu women in order to convert them to Islam.

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Asked if the BJP was trying to mobilise votes in Uttar Pradesh on communal lines by promising in its manifesto to ban cattle slaughter and provide helicopter services only to Hindu religious sites, Shah said, “Please don’t see a ban on slaughterhouses from that point of view. We want to prevent cattle smuggling and slaughter.”

Regarding the party’s promise to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya on the site of the Babri Masjid that BJP cadres were instrumental in demolishing in 1992, Shah said Constitutional provisions will be taken into consideration. “It [Ram Mandir] can only be done under the Constitutional provisions: either through dialogue or through court order,” he said.

He claimed that the BJP would win the upcoming polls with a 2/3rd majority.

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Elaborating on the impact of demonetisation, Shah said neither has revenue nor income gone down. “Just imagine what Rs 8 lakh crore in excess entering the system actually means,” he said. “Money that was lying in coffers and chests has now come back into the system. I believe that this is going to create a massive difference.”

Apart from Uttar Pradesh, the party president said he was confident that the BJP would form the governments in Uttarakhand and Goa.