lok-sabha-elections

Updated: Apr 08, 2019 07:51 IST

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath waved at the crowd waiting patiently to hear him for hours as his plane descended for landing in Assam’s Hojai on Saturday. The turnout was significant. So were the chants for Adityanath, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s star campaigner.

Adityanath, who is the head priest of the Gorakhpur’s Gorakhnath Mutt, has followers also in Assam, where the BJP formed its first government in 2016. “Jogiji zindabad [long live Yogi],” the person managing the stage began. The restless crowd joined in with: “Zindabad, zindabad.” The chants grew louder when Adityanath was introduced as “Hindu hriday samrat [the darling of Hindus]”.

Soon Adityanath began his address. He repeatedly mentioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. He hailed Modi and ridiculed Gandhi as the crowd applauded.

Adityanath took off hours earlier for campaigning in Assam and Odisha, which have 35 seats in Lok Sabha. The BJP has been trying to make inroads into states like Odisha. It has peaked in its western and north Indian strongholds like Uttar Pradesh, where it won 71 out of 80 seats to return to power in 2014.

Adityanath left for campaigning after replying to an Election Commission (EC) notice over his “Modi ki sena [Modi’s Army]” remarks about the Prime Minister’s stand on terrorism at a rally. The poll panel let him off with a mild censure and asked him to be careful in future.

In his address in Hojai, Adityanath worded his praise of Modi’s stand on terrorism differently. He pointed out the army had been proactive in countering terrorists under Modi.

He referred to a strike against terrorists on the Myanmar border following the attack in Manipur’s Chandel district that left 18 soldiers dead in 2015. He also spoke about the surgical strike after the attack on an Army camp in Jammu and Kashmir’s Uri in 2016 and the February 26 aerial strike in Pakistan’s Balakot in response to the February 14 Pulwama terror attack in which 40 paramilitary troopers were killed.

“You saw how the army pushed back the Chinese in Doklam,’’ Adityanath said, referring to the over two-month stand-off between Indian and Chinese troops in 2017 near the borders of India, Bhutan, and China. “This is the difference in leadership. The army is the same, but the leadership is different and the results are here for all to see,” he said. “Under Modi, we do not feed Biryani to terrorists, we feed them bullets.”

Adityanath targeted the Congress for being “hand in glove” with Maulana Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIDUF) in Assam.

“Ajmal ruined Assam and now the Congress has taken its support,” Adityanath said.

The Congress has no tie-up with the AIUDF, which is contesting only three out of Assam’s 14 seats. In 2014, the Congress and AIUDF won three seats each while the BJP secured seven Lok Sabha seats in Assam.

AIUDF leader Aminul Islam said his party has never been part of the government in the state. “What are they blaming us for?

Congress spokesperson, Rhituporna Konwar, called Adityanath’s comments plain “lies and rubbish” . “It is the BJP which has an understanding with the AIUDF.”

Adityanath attacked Congress president Rahul Gandhi over his move to contest also from Kerala’s Wayanad along with his family pocket borough – Amethi. “Rahul Gandhi fled to Wayanad as he is sure of losing Amethi. You would have seen his nomination and rally in Kerala, where one neither saw the [Congress’s symbol] panja [hand] nor the Indian flag. All that one saw was the crescent moon and star flag of the Muslim League…,” said Adityanath, referring to the flags of Congress ally, the Indian Union Muslim League, in Kerala.

He addressed two rallies in Odisha on the phone after his chopper could not take off due to lack of time and attacked chief minister Naveen Patnaik. “Like Rahul Gandhi, Naveen Babu, who has been Odisha chief minister for decades, has fled from Bijepur and is contesting from Hinjili. Leaving his seat and contesting from another shows his failure,” he said.