Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday targeted the Congress by referring to its alliance with the Muslim League, raising the bogey of the southern party’s “green flag” and the role its predecessor had played in Partition.

“The entire country had joined hands with Mangal Pandey against the English during the freedom struggle of 1857. Then the virus of the Muslim League came and spread, partitioning the country,” Adityanath tweeted. “The same danger is here again. The green flags are fluttering again. The Congress is infected with the Muslim League. Be careful.”

He added: “The Muslim League is a virus. Nobody can survive after being infected with it; and the Congress, the main Opposition party, is infected with it. Think what will happen if they win. This virus will spread across the country.”

Adityanath appears to be peddling half-baked and outdated information.

The All India Muslim League, a political party founded in 1906, had advocated the partition of India in 1947. But the Indian Union Muslim League was formed in 1948 by three Indian leaders in defiance of a call from the pro-Pakistan faction in the

All India Muslim League in 1947 that the organisation be disbanded as the goal of Partition had been met. Since then, the Indian Union Muslim League has emerged as an influential moderate voice in Kerala.

In fact, when the Babri Masjid was demolished, the Indian Union Muslim League had acted as a calming influence and refused to stoke communal embers, risking the wrath of some radical Muslims who have since then drifted to more hard-line groups.

Although the Indian Union Muslim League is occasionally criticised for taking conservative positions to protect its base, it is still considered secular and as mainstream as any other big political party in the country.

It appears that Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s decision to contest from the Kerala constituency of Wayanad — apart from his Uttar Pradesh pocket borough of Amethi — provoked Adityanath’s remarks. He had referred to the matter at an election rally in Kashipur, Uttarakhand, on Thursday.

“Rahul Gandhi asked his special ally, the Muslim League, in Wayanad, Kerala, not to come to his rally with its green flags so that the voters of Uttar Pradesh didn’t get angry with the Congress,” he had said. “Those who formed an alliance with the Muslim League are calling themselves secular.”

The Muslim League hit back saying Adityanath was talking to vacant chairs and that the BJP was upset at Rahul’s popularity in Wayanad, a PTI report from Thiruvananthapuram said.

Party leader P.K. Kunhalikutty said the BJP was forgetting that it has had alliances with various “green flag” parties at various places, such as the People’s Democratic Party with which it ran a government in Jammu and Kashmir till last June.

Chief Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said it was “Bhogi” (hedonistic) Adityanath who was the “virus”, making “completely intemperate” remarks.

Kerala Congress chief Mullappally Ramachandran said Adityanath had made “a conscious attempt to create communal tension and to attack the Muslim community”.

The monk turned politician’s references to the Muslim League are in line with similar polarising comments by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the 2017 Assembly polls that catapulted Adityanath to power.