Yogi Adityanath has lambasted the Samajwadi Party and the Congress over the impeachment notice submitted in the Rajya Sabha against Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav of Allahabad High Court for his alleged anti-Muslim comments at a VHP event.
Some 55 Opposition and Independent MPs submitted the notice on Friday. Justice Yadav had at the December 8 event allegedly referred to Muslims as “kathmullahs”, asserted that India would run according to the majority’s wishes, and “pledged” that a uniform civil code would become reality.
“The Opposition should learn to strengthen constitutional institutions…. India will follow the culture of Ram and Krishna and never that of Babur and Aurangzeb,” the Uttar Pradesh chief minister said in the Assembly on Monday, the opening day of a five-day winter session.
The VHP is a wing of the RSS, which works in coordination with sadhus. As mahant of the Gorakhnath temple, Adityanath is a sadhu.
The Supreme Court collegium has summoned Justice Yadav to a meeting and sought a report from Allahabad High Court on his purported comments following complaints from legal watchdogs and lawyers’ bodies. Adityanath was silent on this.
“India is the only country where the majority doesn’t demand more rights, it only asks for equal rights. And the Supreme Court has said there should be the same law for every citizen,” he said, appearing to support a uniform civil code.
“But the Samajwadis and the Congress gave the notice of impeachment…. They want to shut the mouth of those who speak the truth.”
A video purportedly shows Justice Yadav saying at the VHP event: “We teach our children about God and the Vedas from childhood, we teach them non-violence. But you (Muslims) kill animals in front of your children. Then how do you expect them to be tolerant and liberal?... So I don’t have any hesitation in saying that this is India and it will run according to the majority community of this country....”
At another point, he purportedly says: “It’s not that all of them, about whom I am talking, are bad…. The malpractices are because of kathmullahs (fanatics).”
On the uniform civil code (UCC), he appears to say: “You cannot say that I have the right to have four wives, that I have the right to say triple talaq and I have the right not to give maintenance to women…. I assure you that you will see this bill (UCC) very soon…. I pledge here that this country will bring one law very soon.”
Adityanath claimed in the House that a mosque in Sambhal was stealing power from the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited and supplying it to other mosques in the city.
“The Opposition claims there are thieves in the government but when you catch the thieves, you say we are harassing them,” Adityanath said.
Adityanath did not identify the mosque. At least four people had been killed in clashes in Sambhal on November 24 during a court-ordered survey of the town’s Shahi Jama Masjid to ascertain whether it stood on the ruins of a temple.
The chief minister also referred to a Shiva temple in Sambhal that was locked 46 years ago during a riot and opened by the local administration a few days ago.
“We discovered idols of Hindu gods and goddesses in the wells there. Where did they come from?” he said.
He suggested that “some people” (non-Hindus) had thrown the idols into the well. He added that the Baburnama — the memoirs of the first Mughal emperor, Babur — said that temples had been pulled down to build mosques.
Sambhal district magistrate Rajendra Pensiya has said he has written to the Archaeological Survey of India to ascertain the age of the Sambhal Shiva temple.
