india

Updated: Oct 25, 2017 08:31 IST

“As the Taj Mahal was built by Indian labourers, not brought to the country by Mughal emperors in their pockets, there is no question of the Uttar Pradesh government neglecting the monument.”

This is what BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain told mediapersons in Gorakhpur on Tuesday, when asked to comment on party MLA Sangeet Som’s controversial description of the Taj as a blot on Indian culture. “The Taj Mahal is a great work by Hindustani artisans whose hands were cut. The beauty of the Taj will be spruced up by chief minister Yogi Adityanath,” Hussain said.

He was referring to a theory that Mughal emperor Shah Jahan cut off the hands of artisans who worked on the Taj Mahal, just so that they wouldn’t be able to build another monument surpassing its beauty. The claim, however, has been rejected by many prominent historians.

Hussain claimed that Uttar Pradesh has witnessed many advancements, including a decline in corruption and improvement in the law-and-order situation, in just six months of BJP rule. “It is our state’s good fortune that it has a chief minister like Yogiji,” he said.

When asked to comment on Rahul Gandhi’s description of GST as the Gabbar Singh Tax, he quipped that the Congress vice-president was still living in the Sholay era. “The Centre’s development agenda will help the BJP sweep the Gujarat elections with three-fourths majority, and notch an overwhelming win in the Himachal Pradesh assembly polls,” Hussain added.

The former Union minister also dubbed allegations of the BJP trying to bribe a Patidar leader in Gujarat as “baseless”. When asked about the party’s candidates for the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats, which fell vacant after Adityanath’s elevation to the chief minister’s post and Keshav Prasad Maurya’s appointment as the deputy chief minister, Hussain said their names will be declared at the “right time”.