UP CM Adityanath junks Opposition claims over crime, women empowerment

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath tore into the Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly on Wednesday by trashing their charges against him on issues of crime and women empowerment.

Without naming his political rivals, the chief minister recalled how in the past the Samajwadi Party lawmakers "used to throw paper balls" at the podium during the governor's customary address to the House, thereby denigrating the exalted constitutional post.

"Those (parties) who have been insulting the Constitution are today trying to preach us the Constitution. Better they keep off or they will be badly exposed," he warned.

He made the hard-hitting remarks while wrapping up the discussion on the governor's address to the joint sitting of the UP Legislature on the opening day of the budget session last Thursday.

In an apparent reference to former chief minister and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, Adityanath recalled his "ladke, ladke hain" remarks and ridiculed his party for speaking about women empowerment.

While opposing capital punishment for rape, Mulayam had sparked an outrage by saying "ladke, ladke hain...galti ho jati hai (boys will be boys...they commit mistakes)."

He also cited the police firing on 'karsevaks' gathered in Ayodhya on October 30, 1990, when Mulayam was the chief minister. The firing had earned him the nickname of 'Mullah Mulayam'.

The chief minister then trained his guns at the Congress, referring to the infamous "tandoor case" in which former Youth Congress leader Sushil Sharma spent 23 years in the Tihar jail for killing his wife Naina Sahni and then trying to dispose of her body in a tandoor in 1995 on the roof of erstwhile 4-star hotel Ashok Yatri Niwas in New Delhi.

"These parties have the cheek to call themselves champions of women empowerment," he said. The chief minister said when the governor spoke on 'Ram Rajya' in her address, it did not have any religious connotations.

"It takes time to cleanse the system, age-old garbage cannot be removed overnight," he said and listed the major achievements of his government during the past three years, especially in the areas of law and order, infrastructure, economy, agriculture, education and health.

Referring to the agitation against the amended citizenship law, Adityanath asserted that no trouble-maker died due to police bullet and claimed that they died in firing among themselves.

"Upadravi, upadravi ki goli se marey hain," (the trouble-makers died from bullet of another trouble-maker)," he explained.

"Police should be appreciated. If someone is coming to die, how can he be alive. If someone comes out to kill an innocent person and he is challenged by police, then either he or the policemen has to die. No one died of police bullet. A big conspiracy was revealed behind anti-CAA protests," he said.

"Terror funding of the PFI, which is another name of SIMI, came to the fore. Any sympathy for them means, support to the PFI and SIMI. Those who do 'gaddari' (treason) with country, will have 'gumnam maut'," he said.

Sharing data, he claimed that the crime rate has come down during his regime. The 47-year-old saffron robed chief minister went hi-tech using his iPad to refer to the NCRB statistics on crime in UP.