A ‘defiant’ BJP MP Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday addressed a meeting in the state capital in support of the party nominee for the Assembly bypoll from here, Ashutosh Tandon, despite being banned from poll campaign.
An aggressive Adityanath, who is the BJP’s star campaigner, dared the state government to arrest him for defying the ban and termed the government action “undemocratic”. Adityanath addressed the crowd from the roof of a vehicle.
He alleged that the state government had banned all his election rallies scheduled for Wednesday at Mainpuri, Thakurdawara, Nighasan and Lucknow. The firebrand BJP leader, who was recently served a notice by the Election Commission (EC) for his speech at Bijnore a few days back during which he had reportedly raised the issue of “love jihad”, accused the Samajwadi Party (SP) government of indulging in “appeasement” politics.
“This government only has a communal agenda. It is trying to appease a particular section of the community for political gains. It is not bothered about the problems being faced by the farmers and common people,” he alleged.
“The government has funds for constructing boundary walls around graveyards but not for constructing roads and improving the health services...children are dying....the funds are (provided to) only to one community,” he alleged further.
He said hundreds of communal riots had taken place in the state during the Akhilesh Ydaav regime.
Published 10 September 2014, 16:04 IST