Wary of shifting of 'Rajbhar' votes, Yogi rakes up 11th century Muslim warrior Masud Ghazi

Wary of possible shifting of the 'Rajbhar' (an OBC) community votes following an electoral alliance between Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) of former saffron party ally Om Prakash Rajbhar, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath dubbed the SP leader as the disciple of the 11th-century Muslim warrior Syed Salar Masud Ghazi and said that the 'Rajbhars' would never 'support' his (Ghazi) followers.

Addressing a public meeting at Baharaich, about 200 kilometres from here, Adityanath also dubbed the SP leaders as the 'supporters' of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and appealed to the 'Rajbhar' community members not to support them in the next assembly polls in the state.

''SP pays respect to those who divided the country whereas BJP always works to unite the country,'' the chief minister said.

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Masud Ghazi was an 11th-century Muslim warrior and his tomb in Baharaich town was considered to be a place of pilgrimage and visited by a large number of Muslims. It is said that Maharaj Suheldev, the Rajbhar King, had fought Masud Ghazi.

Adityanath also referred to the Ram Temple and said that it was not a symbol of 'communalism'. ''Ram Temple is the symbol of nationalism....it is Rashtra Temple.....talking about is not being communal as is averred by some people,'' he added.

The chief minister's remarks on the Rajbhar community was apparently aimed at countering the SP-SBSP alliance in the polls. The 'Rajbhars' were in sizable numbers of over three dozen assembly seats, especially in some districts in the eastern UP region, including Varanasi, Mirzapur, Ballia, Mau, Ghazipur and others.

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SBSP president Om Prakash Rajbhar, who was a minister in the Adityanath cabinet and was sacked before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls after he turned a bitter critic of the chief minister, has been extensively campaigning in the Rajbhar dominated constituencies and seeking support for the alliance.

SBSP had allied with the BJP in the 2017 assembly polls and according to the political analysts, the alliance had enabled the BJP to sweep the eastern UP region.

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