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BJP, SP run parallel Tiranga campaigns in Uttar Pradesh, target each other
Leaders of both parties are engaged across Uttar Pradesh in campaigning at the grassroots level for hoisting the tricolour.
Uttar Pradesh is witnessing a parallel Tiranga (tricolour) campaign —one by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its government in the state and the other by the Samajwadi Party (SP), the main opposition party. Both are exhorting people to hoist the tricolour on their houses. They are also taking out Tiranga yatras and attacking each other over the campaigns.
The BJP government had announced its “Har Ghar Tiranga (national flag on every home)” campaign from August 13 to 15 as part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (75 years of India’s independence).
In a pre-emptive move, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav launched his party’s “Har Ghar Fehrey Rashtradwaj Tiranga (hoist the national flag on every house)” on August 9, the August Kranti Diwas (anniversary of the Quit India Movement).
With the two parallel campaigns on, acrimony between the two parties is also palpable.
Mentioning the BJP government’s “Har Ghar Tiranga campaign”, the SP chief said, “The BJP can cause riots in the name of Tiranga”. For his part, deputy chief minister Brajesh Pathak hit back at Akhilesh, who on August 5, had said: “The country must realise that the BJP is a political wing of the RSS and if we see its history, it has not hoisted the tricolour on its premises for many years.”
Accusing the BJP of the politics of divide and rule, he said, “I want to caution that the BJP can cause riots in the name of ‘Tiranga’...‘Tiranga Yatra’. You all must remember what happened in Kasganj. How BJP workers caused riots in Kasganj in the name of Tiranga Yatra.”
The same day, Brajesh Pathak targeted the Samajwadi Party and said: “Those who trigger riots can never respect the tricolour. It is Akhilesh who divides or how else the family that was once the SP’s strength is divided now and the party has weakened.” Pathak also referred to the split between Akhilesh and his politically estranged uncle Shivpal Yadav, who now heads the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia.
Prof SK Dwivedi, a political analyst and former head of the department of political science at Lucknow University, said: “I do appreciate the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign of the ruling BJP and it is creditable that the SP, too, launched a campaign of its own for the tricolour. Such a thing is good for inculcating patriotism among the country’s citizens. Other political parties should also join in. So far as political acrimony is concerned, that’s part of politics. I am happy to see the way people are responding to the Tiranga campaigns.”
Leaders of both parties are engaged across the state in campaigning at the grassroots levels for hoisting the tricolour.
While Akhilesh Yadav flagged off a motorcycle Tiranga Yatra in Kannauj last week, BJP government’s ministers rode at the head of the bicycle Tiranga yatra in Prayagraj on Thursday (August 11).
Amid the Tiranga fervour, the Samajwadi Party is not leaving any opportunity to troll the BJP and its leaders on social media over incidents like supposedly holding the tricolour upside down or a bundle of flags seen on the floor.
