New Delhi: Justifying its decision to appoint Yogi Adityanath as the face of its campaign for the Uttar Pradesh bypolls, BJP on Wednesday said the MP was chosen after much deliberation within the party.
"It was done after much deliberations," BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said when asked whether there was any special reason to choose Adityanath among the three party leaders entrusted with leading the BJP campaign for the upcoming bye-elections in Uttar Pradesh.
Speaking during a panel discussion on a TV news channel, Trivedi said Adityanath was just an MP whereas statements like Muslims have first claim on resources had been made by the former Prime Minister.
"Was this secularism? Rahul Gandhi had quoted Wikileaks saying Hindu terror is dangerous for country. If the former Prime Minister, Home Minister and Rahul Gandhi can say all this and one draws a comparison of that to what Yogi Adityanath said, then I do not have any issue," he said.
Adityanath had recently said riots happen wherever they are more than 10 percent in numbers while there is no place for non-Muslims where they are more than 35 percent.
Trivedi said the MP had said this in special context or situation, one cannot take it in the national context.
He also alleged that Congress and Samajwadi Party leaders had also made controversial comments.
Targeting the SP government in Uttar Pradesh, Trivedi claimed that in the last 20 years there had been three occasions when the army had to be called in due to the seriousness of communal violence in the state – November 1990, September 1994 and October 2013.
"Was it mere coincidence that SP government was in power during all the three occasions? The present party in power in UP should do introspection as to why after their coming to power, the communal subject has become so sensitive? Even their Chief Minister says Muzzaffarnagar incident was a small incident of eve teasing," he said.
Earlier, Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam had alleged that after new government's formation at the Centre, communal violence had erupted in 600 places in UP and there was an attempt to polarize the country through communal violence.
Congress leader Jitin Prasada questioned Narendra Modi's "silence" in the matter and asked why he cannot tell his partymen and leaders that they should refrain from saying anything which gives rise to communal tension.
JD(U) too attacked the BJP government saying that the slogan of this new regime has changed from "minimum govt, maximum governance" before elections to "minimum BJP, maximum VHP" after coming to power.
In another panel discussion on the issue of clean Ganga, environmentalist Rajendra Singh said that till date four major studies have been conducted on the cleansing and safety of Ganga but no concrete steps have been taken.
It is high time that something concrete is done, he said.
Singh said there was no dearth of laws in the country but even if one would be implemented in the right way, the condition of the holy Ganga would have been better.
A National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) meeting to be chaired by the PM was not convened during the first 100 days. One should reap benefits from Ganga but not exploit her with greed, he said.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said the reason for the failure of Central Ganga Plan 1 and 2 was due to lack of interest shown by state governments.
"Since 85 per cent money in the project went from the Centre fund and 15 per cent from the state's fund, there was less participation and interest shown by the state government," he said.
Patra said of the Rs 20,000 crore Ganga cleaning project, only one-third of the target has been achieved with Rs 960 crore spent in the last 30 years.
The Prime Minister has given priority to not only water (Ganga) but toilets as well, he said.
BJP MP Manoj Tiwari said the government has done tremendous work in the past 100 days and much more will be done. "Four ministries have been attached to each other and a budget of 2,037 crore has been allocated for Ganga," he said.
Speaking on the issue, Congress Leader Subodh Kant Sahay said," The Congress government under Rajiv Gandhi had started work on cleaning the Ganga which needs to be carried forward".
