Akhilesh Yadav countered the remark on his father by the UP chief minister in the state assembly on February 25.
“Such thing should never have been said on the floor of the UP assembly. If you speak about the father of somebody then it is natural that the person can also counter in the same language. If you follow the traditions and conventions, then you will have to shed those traditions,” Akhilesh Yadav said.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, while replying to the debate on motion of thanks to the governor’s address to the joint sitting of UP legislature, had said “Akhilesh Yadav should be ashamed that he failed to respect his father and veteran leader Mulayam Singh Yadav”.
Lashing out at the main opposition party in the House, the chief minister reminded them of former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s oft-quoted statement “children make mistakes” in the context of conviction of two Muslims by a court in Mumbai in a rape case. The chief minister had also quoted from the noted Hindi writer Ramdhari Singh Dinkar to criticise Akhilesh Yadav for allegedly harbouring criminals and pursuing the casteist agenda.
Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday also quoted from the same author saying the chief minister had quoted what suited his own political interest. “The chief minister read from page 16 of the book, I am reading from page 15.” Akhilesh Yadav quoted Ramdhari Singh to press his point of caste based census. Dinkar’s book refers to the characters of Karn and Arjun in the epic Mahabharat.
Akhilesh Yadav also countered the claim of the chief minister that during the Samajwadi Party government, 46 out of 56 sub-divisional magistrates selected by UP State Public Service Commission were from the Yadav community. Akhilesh Yadav demanded that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath place the list of the candidates selected by the UPPSC on the floor of the House.
“This is the reason why the Samajwadi Party has raised the demand of caste-based census, as this is the only route for bringing Ramrajya and ensuring Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas,” Akhilesh Yadav said and added, “The Yogi government had conducted the survey for enumerating the number of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in Class 3 and Class 4 state services. The government should immediately make this report public.”
Quoting from the Dinkar book, Akhilesh Yadav said, Caste is a 5,000-year-old unsettled issue. Yadav said he was insulted by the Bharatiya Janata Party workers when he had gone to attend a religious function on the banks of river Gomti.
Akhilesh Yadav maintained that he and his party had nothing against Ramayana. He asked the chief minister to tell the House who were shudras.
“Bhagwan Ram belongs to all. The BJP cannot claim proprietorship only because they have collected huge donations from across the country in the name of Bhagwan Ram and construction of a temple at Ayodhya,” Akhilesh Yadav said.