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UP polls: BJP slams Akhilesh for ‘silence’ over sentencing of Ahmedabad blasts convicts
Uttar Pradesh assembly election 2022: CM Yogi Adityanath, Union home minister Amit Shah and I&B minister Anurag Thakur lashed out at the Samajwadi Party chief.
A day before Uttar Pradesh votes in the third phase, leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday launched an all-out attack on Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav, claiming that one of the convicts in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts case is the son of a leader from the Yadav-led party.
Also Read | Ahmedabad bomb blast: ‘Scars are deep even after 14 years’
“We welcome the court judgment. Of the 49 convicted, Mohd Saif is the son of SP leader Shadab Ahmed. Why is Akhilesh silent over this? These photos show him with the then CM Akhilesh Yadav. Did Akhilesh Yadav call him over biryani? The politician's son was the mastermind and involved in the blasts,” news agency ANI quoted Union information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur, who is the BJP's co in-charge for the ongoing polls in the country's most populous state, as saying.
Meanwhile, addressing an election rally in the state's Banda district, Union home minister Amit Shah warned that if the SP, by any chance, is victorious, then ‘UP will supply terrorism all over the country.’
Earlier today, chief minister Yogi Adityanath alleged that Yadav--his predecessor in the top post--was seen campaigning for votes with relatives of one of the convicts.
On Friday, a special court in Gujarat's Ahmedabad sentenced 38 people to death and awarded life imprisonment to 11 in connection with the serial explosions in the state's largest city, which took place on July 26, 2008. On February 8, the court convicted 49 accused while 29 were acquitted. A total of 80 people went to trial in the case.
Also Read | Intel to joint ops: How probe into Ahmedabad bomb blasts case unfolded
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat when the blasts took place. Akhilesh Yadav held the same post in Uttar Pradesh from 2012 to 2017.
Uttar Pradesh will vote in seven phases of which two have already taken place, on February 10 and 14. While 58 of its 403 assembly seats went to polls in the first phase, 55 voted in the second, and 59 will on Sunday. The remaining rounds will be held on February 23, 27, March 3 and 7. The counting for votes cast across all seven phases will be conducted on March 10.
