BJP state president Keshav Prasad Maurya appealed to party cadres not to use his photo equating him with God in hoardings, posters or social media and advused them not to go overboard with his appointment as state president.
“I am a simple human being who has been given an assignment by the leadership. Please do not get over excited. My pictures should not be used depicting me as God in hoardings, posters or social media,” Maurya said in his appeal on Sunday.
The statement was issued after BJP workers put up posters in eastern UP depicting him as lord Krishna and Opposition leaders as Dushashan pulling the saree of Draupadi – depcited as Uttar Pradesh. The party had to face severe flak once the poster went viral in social media. The poster also had pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah. The BJP quickly washed its hands off the person who released the poster stressing that he did not belong to the party.
Maurya said that workers should not get over enthusiastic with his appointment as state chief. “This act of party workers will bring a bad name to BJP which is unacceptable to me,” he said.
He appealed to workers to help PM Narendra Modi to make UP as Uttam Pradesh. “Our aim is to win 265 plus seats in the 2017 Assembly elections and we should strive to achieve this target,” Maurya said.
Meanwhile, addressing party workers in Mathura and Vrindavan, the state BJP president said that the party and its ally won 73 seats in the 2014 lok Sabha polls. "We have to replicate the achievement. The onus is on the workers to spread out in villages and inform people about the good work done by the Modi government," he said.
Maurya clarified, "The Opposition parties have been spreading canards about criminal cases against me. These are all political cases which were been lodged during political agitation to corner me.”