Rampur: Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister Azam Khan on Thursday hit out at BJP for the lynching of a man in Dadri by a mob, allegedly over consumption of beef, claiming that the party's strategy is to attract votes by polarising people along communal lines ahead of the 2017 state Assembly elections.
"Such heinous acts may be taken as the saffron outfits's preparation for the upcoming UP Assembly elections in 2017.
They deem massacre of innocent Muslims as one of the strategies to attract electorate on communal lines," Azam Khan alleged.
"BJP has been inciting large scale violence in UP ahead of the assembly polls. Such incidents are occurring repeatedly after the Muzaffarnagar violence," he said.
Azam claimed that the 50-year-old man was dragged out by the BJP supporters gathered in large numbers, who accused him of sacrificing a cow and bludgeoned him to death.
He challenged the government to impose a countrywide ban on cow slaughter, saying that beef is being openly sold in states like Goa, Meghalaya, Pondicherry and West Bengal.
Alleging that Muslims were being victimised for staying in India like patriots instead of migrating to Pakistan during partition, he urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to prevent BJP volunteers from victimizing the community to meet "petty political ends".
Azam took a swipe at PM Modi quoting his plea of "Sarva Dharma Sambhava", saying the blot of 2002 Gujarat riots has not washed off him yet.
He also blamed the Noida administration for not acting swiftly and allowing vehicles fitted with loudspeakers to move on the roads, thus instigating people to join the protest.
