Harchandpur: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took the fight to the Congress party in their home turf during a heated speech that attacked Congress President Sonia Gandhi and leader Rahul Gandhi for "misleading" the people of UP by pretending to be proper Hindus.
"Both bhai and behen are making efforts to convince people that they are Ram bhakts. Kalnemi (a demon mentioned in Ramayana) also tried to do so. But Hanuman recognised him," Adityanath said at an election rally in Harchandpur assembly constituency of Raebareli that goes to polls in the fourth phase of UP elections on February 23.
He asserted that the Bharatiya Janatha Party in power were true "Ram bhakts" who would build the Ram temple in Ayodhya, years after the Congress government refused to do so even when they held power.
He described the Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate Harchandpur Rakesh Singh, a defector from the Congress, as a supreme Ram bhakt and recounted how he convinced Singh to join the BJP, by asking him why he was on the side of "Raavan" and not "Ram" while he was still a member of the Congress.
Yogi's address comes on the heels of Sonia Gandhi's own online address that criticised the "step-motherly" treatment meted out to the district by the BJP government, who blocked several welfare schemes the Congress had tried to establish, she claimed.
"It's going to be an important election because for the last five years you have seen a government which did nothing except divide people," Gandhi said during a virtual address on the last day of the poll campaign for fourth phase.
She said over 8000 Congress workers in the state had been jailed while fighting for the rights of the people. The Congress President also lashes out at the BJP for Covid mismanagement on a state and national level. Farmers, youth and working class got the short end of the stick after troubles caused by the pandemic she said, noting that inflation had hit households hard.
"The Modi-Yogi government gave proof of how irresponsible they are. They turned away their faces from your problems and shut their eyes to your woes. Not only this, their behaviour towards you was also not good during the lockdown. The government did not provide you any relief," she said.