UP Polls: SP leader Azam Khan takes on Modi’s policies in Ghaziabad - Hindustan Times
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UP Polls: SP leader Azam Khan takes on Modi’s policies in Ghaziabad

Hindustan Times | By, Ghaziabad
Feb 10, 2017 11:35 AM IST

Samajwadi Party leader Mohammad Azam Khan on Thursday attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), to woo Muslim voters. He was addressing an election rally in support of Samajwadi Party’s ‘brahmin’ candidate, Pandit Ram Asre Sharma.

Samajwadi Party leader Mohammad Azam Khan on Thursday attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), to woo Muslim voters. He was addressing an election rally in support of Samajwadi Party’s ‘brahmin’ candidate, Pandit Ram Asre Sharma.

Khan was addressing an election rally in support of Samajwadi Party’s ‘brahmin’ candidate, Pandit Ram Asre Sharma.(Sakib Ali/HT)
Khan was addressing an election rally in support of Samajwadi Party’s ‘brahmin’ candidate, Pandit Ram Asre Sharma.(Sakib Ali/HT)

Khan was speaking at an election rally in Kalcheena, Modi Nagar when he led personal attacks on PM Modi and also targeted the RSS on certain issues. Both Samajwadi Party (SP) and rival Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are trying to woo Muslim voters, who might prove to be decisive.

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“Don’t preach discord. Labourers in Muzaffarnagar worked in your fields, cleaned your houses and did daily chores. These poor people served you but you murdered them, set fire to their homes and killed their children. How will people trust you?” Khan said.

In its election manifesto, BJP has promised closure of all unregulated slaughterhouses if it comes to power. Khan alleged that the slaughterhouses having an investment of near and dear ones are ‘legal’ while those run by the poor are ‘illegal.’ He made the claim about one major beef exporter, and said that the owners are from a different religion and friends of PM Modi.

“Modi ji, killing is a sin. Slaughtering should be stopped all over the country and all slaughterhouses should be closed. No animal should be killed,” he said.

“How can a man who could not give the status of a wife to a married woman serve (the country’s) daughters? My mother is not in this world anymore. I am a weak man. But even if my children are hungry, I will not let my mother stand in a bank queue. Ye kya kar diya badshah tumne? (What have you done, emperor?) Instead of making tea, you should instead tell how you wore 80-crore clothes in the last two years?” he said.

He also attacked the RSS, alleging that it is bent on stopping reservations.

“Such people don’t deserve votes. These people are not to be believed. You should recognise them, their conspiracies and build a better Hindustan. They tell ‘love jehad,’ ‘ghar wapsi’, but they are against love marriages. RSS people don’t generally marry, do they? And those in top positions are alone,” he said.

He also tried to project himself as a saviour of the party, in the aftermath of the family feud that broke out among Akhilesh, Mulayam and Shivpal over the last few months. He said that it was a ‘major storm’ but he did not allow friction to creep in between the father and son.

He said that five years ago, Mulayam told him to propose Akhilesh as CM. “Earlier I had proposed the father’s name and was also happy to propose the son as CM (in 2012). Then, I had promised that I will act as a bridge between father and son and I did this job. The party, the symbol and everything else has been saved,” he said.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Peeyush Khandelwal writes on a range of issues in western Uttar Pradesh – from crime, to development authorities and from infrastructure to transport. Based in Ghaziabad, he has been a journalist for almost a decade.

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