Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday, 22 May, spoke about the controversy over a portrait of Mohammad Ali Jinnah at Aligarh Muslim University’s (AMU) campus, saying that the founder of Pakistan deserves no respect in India.
While speaking to CNN-News18, the former Gorakhpur MP said:
Jinnah is responsible for the partition of this country, he deserves no respect in India.Yogi Adityanath, CM, Uttar Pradesh
Adityanath was responding to a question over ‘ganna (sugarcane) vs Jinnah’ allegations raised by the opposition in Western Uttar Pradesh, implying that this was simply the BJP government’s attempt to polarise voters ahead of the Kairana bypolls instead of focusing on the plight of sugarcane farmers.
Adityanath reached western UP’s Kairana Lok Sabha area on Tuesday to campaign for the upcoming by-elections. Kairana lies in the heart of the sugarcane production belt and the payment of sugarcane dues by farmers to sugar mills is an election issue.
The bypolls to Uttar Pradesh's Kairana Lok Sabha seat and Noorpur Assembly seat are scheduled to take place on 28 May. The counting in both seats will take place on 31 May.
The by-election is crucial for Adityanath, especially after the BJP lost in Gorakhpur and Phulpur constituencies in March.
The Adityanath administration was accused of polarising voters through raising issues such as the Jinnah portrait issue that erupted earlier this month, courtesy the BJP Lok Sabha MP from Aligarh, Satish Gautam.
The controversy began with a letter written by Gautam to the AMU Vice Chancellor on 30 April in which he questioned the presence of a portrait of Jinnah – Pakistan's founder – in the AMU Students Union (AMUSU) office.
On 2 May, former Vice President M Hamid Ansari visited the AMU at the invitation of the AMUSU that was to confer its lifetime membership – an honour also bestowed on Jinnah in 1938 and which explains the presence of his portrait there – on the former Vice President and a former Vice Chancellor of the university.
A group of men, owing allegiance to the Hindu Yuva Vahini, an outfit founded and patronised by Adityanath, decided to create a ruckus near the administrative block of the university by raising objectionable slogans against the existence of the portrait on AMU’s campus.
(With inputs from IANS.)
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