Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has come under the fire from the BJP for not physically paying his final respects to former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh.
Singh, who was the Chief Minister during the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, died aged 89 on Saturday evening and was cremated on Monday in Bulandshahr by the Ganga.
While BSP supremo Mayawati visited the residence of Singh's family on Sunday and offered her last respects to his mortal remains, Mr. Yadav stayed away physically even though he tweeted a customary condolence message.
On Tuesday, senior BJP OBC leaders accused Mr. Yadav of trying to appease Muslims by not paying his respects to Singh, who was a Lodh Rajput (OBC) and a key face of the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple movement, which brought the BJP to power for the first time in U.P. in 1991.
Swatantra Dev Singh, BJP State president, said Mr. Yadav did not come to pay tribute to Kalyan Singh, who lived barely 1 km from his residence. “Did the charm of Muslim vote bank prevent him from paying tribute to the biggest leader of the backward castes,” he asked in a tweet.
Keshav Prasad Maurya, Deputy Chief Minister, said Mr. Yadav lost the “moral right” to talk about OBCs by not turning up to pay his final respects to Kalyan Singh.
Sachidanand Hari alias Sakshi Maharaj, MP Unnao and himself a Lodh, accused Mr. Yadav of avoiding the last rites of Kalyan Singh just to “appease" a “particular community” for votes.
U.P. votes early next year and the BJP hopes to consolidate its grip on the non-Yadav OBC votes, the largest chunk of voters in the State, by polarising them against Muslims and Yadavs, together roughly 30% of the population and the core support base of the SP.
A key poll strategy of the BJP over the years has been to accuse the SP of favouring Muslims.
