Jinnah Remark: Yogi Slams Akhilesh
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath yesterday targeted Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav over his Jinnah remark, saying that someone who is “cultureless” cannot be expected to know the difference between a national hero and a traitor. He was attacking Yadav for his remarks in which he appeared to have equated Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah with Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
Without naming the SP chief directly, Adityanath said a leader of a party had recently spoke of Sardar Patel and Jinnah in the same breath as leaders who fought for India’s independence. During a public meeting in Hardoi on October 31, Yadav had put together names of Mahatma Gandhi and other freedom fighters with Jinnah’s. “Sardar Patel, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jinnah studied in the same institute and became barristers. They helped (India) get freedom and never backed away from any struggle,” he had said.
During a programme launching online transfer of money in the accounts of parents of 1.80 crore students studying under Basic Shiksha Parishad at his official residence in Lucknow, Adityanath said, “Remember, if education is incomplete, culture is lacking, etiquette is lost, then you cannot expect that person to feel the difference between a national hero and a traitor.” “If such a situation arises today, then it may also be a reason for the lack of interest of the child’s parents in their education. And, so all this needed to be told in the morning assembly,” he said.
“Often this disorientation starts only when the person does not know who is the friend of the country and who is the enemy of the country. When we start weighing the national hero and the anti-national in the same scale, then naturally it raises a question mark on the person’s ability,” the chief minister said. In Auraiya, earlier in the day, Adityanath warned people against political parties which equate Sardar Patel with Jinnah.
