Residents of Amritpur village in Uttar Pradesh – in Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s home district Etawah – have painted a block of 100 toilets saffron, The Indian Express reported on Friday.
The district administration had constructed 350 toilets in the village under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Open Defecation Free schemes. The villagers said they decided to paint the toilets saffron “to pay tributes” Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Adityanath.
Village head Ved Pal Singh claimed the district was not involved, but that 500 additional toilets sanctioned will also be painted saffron once they are built.
“I took suggestions from local residents, and they were all in favour,” he was quoted as saying. “It was the people’s choice, and we would like other villages to follow this. When the BJP is ruling at the Centre and has formed the state government, why should we not reflect their presence at the village and panchayat level?”
Besides these 100 saffron toilets, Singh said 350 others had been painted red, yellow and white.
Block Development Officer (Basrehar) Prashant Singh said the administration did not issue any directives about the paint job. “Money is transferred to beneficiaries, after which it is up to them to paint their toilets as they like,” he said. “We only ensure there is uniformity in the size of toilets, and that details of the beneficiaries are displayed along with the concerned scheme.”
Akhilesh Yadav claimed the government was behind this, and that it had insulted religion by painting the toilets saffron. “They named the toilets ‘izzatghar’ and then splattered colour on that izzat [honour],” he was quoted as saying by PTI. “We believe changing colours will not change anything…It is only the colour of development that is permanent.”
Uttar Pradesh’s colour since Adityanath took charge has been saffron. In October 2017, the Chief Minister’s Office was painted a saffron shade. Ever since he took over, the towels that cover his chair and the curtains of his office were also changed to saffron.
He had also flagged off a fleet of 50 saffron-coloured buses, and his Education Department distributed saffron-coloured school bags to primary schools students. The booklets distributed to mark 100 days and six months of the Adityanath government were also saffron.
The boundary wall of the office of the Uttar Pradesh Haj Committee was also painted saffron, but it was changed to white soon after.
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