News Politics National Take revenge for insult during UP riots in the polls: Shah

Take revenge for insult during UP riots in the polls: Shah

Bijnor: Raising the communal temperature in riot-affected western UP going to polls on Monday, Narendra Modi's close aide Amit Shah spoke of the current elections as being an opportunity to take "revenge for the insult"

In another meeting yesterday near Muzaffarnagar, Shah said, "We have been treated like second class citizens. Justice has not been done. It is not the time for bullets."

"It was in the time of Mughals that swords and arrows were used for revenge, now you have to press the button. Press the right button, and show those who have done this their right place."

"People who have insulted our community, those who have killed our youth, can we feel honoured sitting with them," Shah said.

The BJP leader said that once a Modi government was formed at the centre, the Samajwadi government in UP would "also collapse".

"If you vote for Modi, not only Modi government will be formed in Delhi but at the same time, Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party government will collapse. One vote of yours can be used for two purposes," he said.

The Samajwadi Party said Shah's remarks vindicated what it had always said about Modi and his aides being " fascists".

"They cannot tolerate anyone else. To say that a democratically elected government will be dismissed shows they believers of fascism and these kind of people are never elected."

"BJP is frustrated as they will not get the kind of result they were expecting in Uttar Pradesh.... Let them dare to dismiss the SP government, " SP leader Ramgopal Yadav said.

Congress leader Satyavrat Chautvedi said the BJP, which had accused the Congress of communalism over the meeting between Sonia Gandhi and Shahi Imam, should answer if it considered Shah's speech as "communal and provocative or one which promotes amity".

Party candidate and spokesperson Raj Babbar accused both the SP and the BJP of trying to divide the people of Uttar Pradesh along communal lines.