Sharing a dais with his junior Ajay Mishra Teni, Union home minister Amit Shah on Friday declared his blood “used to boil” when he saw the poor law-and-order situation in Uttar Pradesh under Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party governments.
Teni’s presence signalled Shah’s support for the junior home minister, who has faced demands for his removal since his son Ashis was accused of leading a convoy that deliberately mowed down four farmers from behind in Lakhimpur Kheri on October 3.
Ashis, who was allegedly driving a Thar jeep belonging to his father, is in judicial custody. Days before, Teni had threatened to fix the farmers if they didn’t stop protesting against three new central farm laws. Teni himself faces a murder case that has been dragging on for 17 years.
Samajwadi president and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav later said: “Those who killed farmers under their wheels are the home minister’s favourites. The Union minister of state for home, whose son mowed down the farmers, is protected by the government and shares a dais with the home minister.”
Shah, as he contrasted law and order under Yogi Adityanath’s rule favourably with that under his immediate predecessors, seemed to repeat a discredited allegation by late BJP lawmaker Hukum Singh about Hindu families migrating for fear of Muslim extortionists.
“My blood used to boil seeing the destruction of law and order in 15 years (under Samajwadi and BSP rule) and the forced migration from Kairana before the BJP came to power (in 2017),” Shah said, addressing a party membership drive in Lucknow.
“People used to leave Uttar Pradesh out of fear. But now those who used to force people to leave Uttar Pradesh are running out of the state.”
After Hukum aired his allegation in 2016, the then Akhilesh government had said a physical verification by the local administration had found it to be false. Investigations by media outlets had corroborated the state government’s findings.
Shah claimed that law and order used to be so bad in Meerut that outstation girl students of Meerut University would prefer commuting 100km from Delhi every day to staying in the western Uttar Pradesh city.
“Girl students of Meerut University used to live in Delhi. But the situation has changed: women can step out of their homes at 12 o’clock in the night wearing jewellery,” Shah said.
“There used to be two-three bahubalis (musclemen) in every district in the past but you will not now find them even with a binocular under Yogi Adityanath’s rule.”
Adityanath’s rule has been marked by the horrific Hathras and Unnao rapes, and official records have shown no decline in crimes against women in the state.
Shah targeted Akhilesh, saying he had taunted the BJP during past election campaigns asking why the party did not reveal the date for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
“Akhilesh Babu, we have now laid the foundation stone for the temple but you failed to donate even Rs 5,000 towards it,” he said.
Akhilesh told reporters: “We got more temples built than anyone else. I had got a temple constructed even on the premises of the chief minister’s residence in Lucknow.”
