Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday accused the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party of working on caste lines when in power in Uttar Pradesh, and said his BJP has worked for all communities in the State since 2017.
Addressing an election meeting for party candidates in Kushinagar, Shah said free scooters will be given to girls and free tablet and smartphones to poor youths who want to pursue higher education if the BJP returns to power in Uttar Pradesh.
He hit out at both the SP and the BSP, accusing the previous governments of “bua and bhatija” (Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav) of keeping Uttar Pradesh divided on caste lines.
“One government would come to power and work for one caste, the other would come and work for another caste. Then the government was formed under Narendra Modi's leadership which worked for whole Uttar Pradesh on the principle of 'sabka saath, sabka vikas',” Shah said.
“Of all parties today, only BJP and Prime Minister Modi are the one who worked for the welfare of the poor and the deprived. For 70 years, parties came and went, SP-BSP talked about poor, backwards, Dalits and deprived classes but did nothing for them,” he said.The district of Kushinagar, which goes to polls on March 3, has seven assembly seats -- Kushinagar, Khadda, Padrauna, Tamkuhi Raj, Fazilnagar, Hata and Ramkola -- of which the BJP had won five in 2017 elections.
The seat of Tamkuhi Raj was won by Ajay Kumar Lallu of the Congress while in Ramkola, Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party's Ramanand Baudh had emerged victorious despite a BJP juggernaut in the state. Notably, Swami Prasad Maurya, considered a prominent face of backward class voters, had won from the Padrauna seat but he recently switched over from the BJP to the Samajwadi Party.However, former Congress leader R P N Singh switched over to the BJP recently in a move that was considered a significant gain for the saffron party in the region.