Responding to jibes of “Muslim appeasement” by BJP leaders against Akhilesh Yadav for not attending the last rites of former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, the Samajwadi Party accused the BJP of using Singh for Hindutva but always treating him like a ‘backward’.
‘Out of party’
Udaiveer Singh, SP MLC and close aide of party chief Akhilesh Yadav, on Wednesday said the BJP deployed Kalyan Singh for Hindutva but always considered him a ‘backward’. “This is why [they] threw him out of the party, and neither gave him a place in the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Trust nor invited him for the foundation ceremony [of the Ram Mandir on August 5, 2020],” Mr. Udaiveer said.
Another SP leader and former Minister Pawan Pandey from Ayodhya also said Kalyan Singh was not given a position in the Trust due to his OBC background.
‘Look inside first’
“The BJP should first look at its own character before pointing fingers at others,” Mr. Pandey said in a tweet in response to a jibe by Swatantra Dev Singh, BJP U.P. president.
On Tuesday, Mr. Yadav had come under fire of the BJP for not physically paying final respects to Kalyan Singh, who died aged 89 on Saturday evening.
Singh, under whose watch the Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992, was cremated on Monday in Bulandshahr by the Ganga.
While former CM and BSP chief Mayawati visited Kalyan Singh’s residence on Sunday and offered her last respects, Mr. Yadav stayed away physically though he tweeted the customary condolence message.
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. “Did the charm of Muslim vote bank prevent him from paying tribute to the biggest leader of the Backward Castes,” Mr. Swatantra Dev Singh asked in a tweet.
