Lucknow, Oct 22 The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday slammed Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s visit to Rampur jail to meet Azam Khan, claiming that meeting jailed party leaders who promote “appeasement and lawlessness” exposed their priorities.
Taking to X, BJP national general secretary and Uttar Pradesh in-charge Vinod Tawde alleged that the Samajwadi Party plans to make Khan, whom he accuses of promoting lawlessness, the state home minister if it wins the assembly elections.
“Riots and lawlessness in the state. PDA’s (Pichhde, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) dream will never be fulfilled!” he said.
Referring to the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots, Tawde said, “The people of Uttar Pradesh remember how the previous Samajwadi Party government plunged western Uttar Pradesh and the entire state into an era of riots and lawlessness.”
He claimed that the Samajwadi Party’s “dream of making Azam Khan – a mastermind behind riots –the state’s home minister would derail Uttar Pradesh’s development and lead it towards destruction”.
“This dream will never be fulfilled,” Tawde added.
Earlier, Akhilesh, after meeting Khan at the jail, claimed that fake cases have been filed against Khan at the behest of the BJP.
“No family, particularly no political family, has faced as much injustice as the family of respected Azam Khan. And who is responsible for this injustice? False cases have been filed against him. He has spent so many years in jail, and the truth is that the Bharatiya Janata Party has no concern for education or knowledge. It is not concerned about universities either. The university has been destroyed in the true sense of the word,” he said while speaking to reporters outside the jail.
“The conspiracy and plot hatched to destroy it are such that perhaps no government, not even a dictatorial one, has ever caused such devastation to the field of education. False cases have been filed against him. These false cases do not have the power to keep him imprisoned forever. It may take time… there may be some delay. But false cases do not have the power to keep the truth imprisoned. And this is not the first time we have come to Rampur. We have been to Rampur before. Our relationship with Rampur is political as well as emotional,” he added.
Akhilesh landed at Jauhar University helipad, where Khan’s family members and party workers received him.
He will later visit Khan’s residence and meet family members.
(PTI News)
