Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath took on the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samajwadi Party at an election rally in Sambhal district after the ban that the Election Commission had imposed on him earlier in the week came to an end on Friday morning.
“When [BSP chief] Mayawati came to power, she stopped Janmashtami celebrations, and when Samajwadi Party came, they stopped Kanwar Yatra,” News18 quoted Adityanath as saying. “They discriminated...they said they will give money for boundary wall for ‘kabristan [Muslim burial ground]’ but not for ‘shamshan ghat [cremation ground]’, my government put an end to that discrimination. We said if kabristan will get money, we will give budget for shamshan ghat also.”
The Kanwar Yatra is undertaken by devotees of Hindu god Shiva who travel to Haridwar, Gaumukh and Gangotri in Uttarakhand, and Sultanganj in Bihar to fetch water from the Ganga. The devotees carry this water in pitchers and offer it to shrines where Shiva is worshipped. After coming to power in 2017, the Adityanath government had lifted the ban on DJs during the yatra. The ban had been put in place by the Samajwadi Party government of Akhilesh Yadav because of communal tension in Bulandshahr and Meerut districts during the yatra. In the run up to the Assembly elections, “It’s a Kanwar Yatra, not a shamshan yatra [death procession]” was a slogan uttered by many BJP leaders.
The BJP leader had been banned by the poll body for three days for comparing the upcoming elections to a contest between Ali, a revered figure in Islam, and Bajrang Bali, which is how devotees refer to Hindu god Hanuman. Adityanath had also suggested that the Bharatiya Janata Party would win the elections because of its faith in the Hindu god.
On Friday morning, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister defended his decision to visit temples during the ban and said it should not be politicised. “The experience attained through darshan of Ram Lalla and Bajrang Bali at Hanuman Garhi and Sarayu Mata temples is difficult to express,” he added. “I am a Hindu by religion. Hindus have respected and treated all other religions equally though the ages.”
Adityanath said respecting constitutional institutions and democratic values was an important part of the BJP’s ideology.
On Thursday, Mayawati had accused the BJP leader of violating the Election Commission’s ban by visiting temples and eating lunch at a Dalit’s house in Ayodhya the day before. “He is deriving electoral mileage by broadcasting them [the visits] on media, but the Election Commission is lenient on him. Why?” the BSP leader had asked on Twitter.
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