Azam once again puts foot in mouth

Targets PM, calls Guv 'Ayodhya priest'

Senior Samajwadi Party leader and Uttar Pradesh minister Azam Khan once again found himself embroiled in a huge controversy after he accused Governor Ram Naik of behaving like the ‘priest’ of the makeshift Ram Temple in Ayodhya.

Khan also made a veiled attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and called him a ‘dictator’.

Apparently, irked over Naik’s recent statement calling for an early construction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya, Khan said the Governor had crossed ‘all limits’.

“The Governor has crossed all limits. He should have been the priest of the Ram Temple,” he said while speaking at a function in Amroha on Saturday evening.Naik had recently said the people wanted a Ram temple at Ayodhya.

“The people of the country want a Ram Temple at Ayodhya. Therefore, it should be built there,” Naik had said at Faizabad.

Naik had earlier also commented on sensitive issues and was criticised by the state’s ruling party. The SP leaders have accused the Governor of meddling into administrative matter.

Khan also targetted Modi and called him a ‘dictator’ albeit in a veiled manner.“The dictators are cowards,” he said.

The firebrand SP leader, who had earlier called the Prime Minister a ‘murderer’ during the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, slammed the media for targetting SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav over expenditure on his birthday celebrations while not asking any question from those, who had ‘financed’ Modi’s election campaign.

He also castigated the media for showing a negative picture of the state and referred to the alleged ‘rape’ and murder of two Budaon sisters.

The CBI, which had investigated the matter, later concluded that the sisters had committed suicide.

BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak took strong exception to the remarks on the Governor and the Prime Minister, and sought Khan’s dismissal from the ministry. “Khan should be acted against and dismissed,” Pathak said.