E-Paper
Banned from poll trail, Adityanath messages with photo op and Ayodhya visit
Yogi Adityanath has been banned by the Election Commission from poll campaign for 72 hours beginning Tuesday morning.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is serving a 72-hour ban from poll campaigning imposed by the Election Commission for violation of the Model Code of Conduct. But the chief minister is not falling behind in sending his message across.
On the second day of the ban, Adityanath met a Muslim woman from Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district. The woman said she was a victim of instant triple talaq, declared unconstitutional last year by the Supreme Court.
“I was beaten up and thrown out of my house by my husband and in-laws,” Naziya said after her meeting with Adityanath. She met the chief minister along with her child and a relative. She said Adityanath assured her of action.
The meeting took place shortly before Adityanath was to leave for Ayodhya, a tour that the BJP’s star campaigner delayed with a detour to meet differently-abled children at Lucknow’s Mohan Road. Adityanath met visually impaired girls here before leaving for Ayodhya.
The Aydohya schedule of Adityanath was reworked to accommodate his visit to a Dalit locality in the city. The chief minister dined in a Dalit’s home.
In Ayodhya, Adityanath’s itinerary includes meetings with saints associated with the Ram Janmabhumi Nyas including Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, the head of the trust, and visits to Digambar Akhara, the makeshift Ram Temple and the Hanumangarhi temple.
Earlier on Tuesday, when the ban came into force, Adityanath visited Lucknow’s Hanuman Setu temple for a public recitation of Hanuman Chalisa. The poll panel’s ban on Adityanath came over his “Ali versus Barjang Bali” remark at an election rally in Uttar Pradesh.
Before heading to Ayodhya, Adityanath also met BJP’s Gorakhpur candidate Ravi Kishan, the actor-turned-politician. Adityanath has represented the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat uninterrupted between 1998 and 2017, when he was appointed UP chief minister after the assembly polls.
The BJP sufferred an embarassing defeat in the Lok Sabha bypoll in Gorakhpur later. Ravi Kishan, the Bhojpuri actor, is Adityanath’s pick for Gorakhpur.
