An Uttar Pradesh BJP leader with a junior minister’s rank has said he would shut down all the madrasas in the country if he could because they “produce only terrorists”, prompting accusations that the party is attempting polarisation ahead of the Assembly elections.

“If God blessed me ever, I would shut down all the madrasas in the country. The madrasas are dens of terrorists, training centres for terrorism. Whoever studies there becomes a terrorist,” Raghuraj Singh, chairperson of the state labour and employment committee, told reporters in Aligarh on Wednesday evening.

Singh claimed the number of madrasas in Uttar Pradesh had risen to 22,000 from 250 in some unspecified past but did not cite the source of the purported data.

“They produce only terrorists,” the relatively minor politician, who has hardly ever been in the limelight before, repeated.

More than 24 hours later, there has been no official clarification from the BJP.

State Congress spokesperson Surendra Singh Rajput asked: “From which madrasa did Nathuram Godse get the training of terrorism to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi?”

Godse, a Hindu Mahasabha member, had previously been with the RSS, the BJP’s ideological parent.

Samajwadi Party lawmaker Anurag Bhadauriya said: “The BJP has nothing to show the voters ahead of the Assembly elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Expectedly, they are trying to divert the voters’ attention to communal issues.”

Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party president Om Prakash Rajbhar, a former BJP ally who tied up with the Samajwadis in 2019, said: “They will say more such things ahead of the elections. Soon, they will start speaking more and more against Pakistan, kabristan (graveyards) and mosques to win the votes of the fanatics.”

Aligarh, a western Uttar Pradesh city, is a favourite spot for BJP leaders to make Muslim-baiting remarks since it houses Aligarh Muslim University, a premier campus the party likes to demonise.