Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, launched a scathing attack against senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan for his obscene remark against Jaya Prada, BJP candidate from Rampur.

While addressing a gathering in Hardoi on Friday, after his 72-hour campaign ban, the saffron-clad monk said, “Our government has constituted anti-Romeo squad for persons like Azam.” The SP leader had made distasteful comments about the colour of Jaya Prada’s undergarments.

In his earlier rally at Sambhal, Yogi, taking a dig against Khan without naming him, stated, “A ‘jeev’ (creature) of SP lives in Rampur… What kind of language he used for Baba Saheb Bhimrao Ambedkar… Today Mayawati ji is seeking votes for those who had disrespected Baba saheb… What kind of language he uses against mothers and daughters?”

The firebrand Hindutva mascot also asserted that he has never asked for votes in the name of religion. “Remember the Congress government when the then prime minister Manmohan Singh had said that Muslims had the first right over the country’s resources while Mayawati in a rally in Saharanpur asked Muslims to unite and vote for the BSP-SP alliance… I have never sought votes in the name of caste or religion,” he said.

Yogi did not spare the candidate from Sambhal either. Calling the SP candidate ‘Babur ki Aulad’, he asserted that Shafiq-ur-Rehman Burq had called himself a descendant of Babur. “Once I was in parliament, I asked the SP candidate, who was also an MP, as to who were his predecessors, he said he was the successor of Babur. I was surprised,” Yogi Adityanath said at the rally.

He added, “I have problem with this fact that a person who has a problem of singing Vande Mataram, one who is ashamed of garlanding the statue of Babasaheb Ambedkar and visiting the Kela Devi temple, is he worthy of your vote? Be it Congress or SP-BSP gathbandhan, are you ready to hand over the reins of the country to these anti-nationalists, terrorists?”

The Election Commission had barred Yogi Adityanath for campaigning for 72 hours following his remarks involving Bajrang Bali in response to Mayawati’s appeal for Muslim votes. In the following three days, Yogi visited the Hanuman Setu Mandir in Lucknow on Tuesday, offered his prayers to Shri Rama at Ayodhya on Wednesday and visited the Kashi Vishwanath Temple on Thursday before resuming his campaign on Friday.