Bharatiya Janata Party's firebrand lawmaker Yogi Adityanath has urged voters of western Uttar Pradesh to remember "rapes and riots" when they go to vote of 11 February.
Speaking at a rally in Bulandshahr on Monday, Adityanath, one of BJP's star campaigners for the 2017 Assembly polls, also likened western U.P. to Kashmir, The Times of Indiareported today. The Lok Sabha lawmaker from Gorakhpur vowed that his party would stop the Hindu "exodus." "There are more than 25 towns in UP where exodus has taken place. Once we are in power we will deal with this menace strictly," he said.
Recalling the flight of the Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s, he said, "If you do not wake up even now, you will also be forced to migrate to other regions."
Adityanath's remarks come on the heels of BJP's lawmaker from Thana Bhawan Suresh Rana saying that if he came to power again, a curfew would be imposed in Meerut, Moradabad and Kairana, three districts that have large Muslim populations. "Yadi maidan maar liya to Kairana, Deoband, Moradabad mein curfew lag jayega mitron...." he said.
The BJP manifesto promises to build the Ram Tample within the framework of the law, and to set up a probe into the exodus of people in western U.P.
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