‘Akhilesh Yadav will himself run away to Pakistan’: OP Rajbhar

Lucknow, Aug 23 (IANS) Uttar Pradesh Minister and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief Om Prakash Rajbhar on Sunday took a jibe at Samajwadi Party (SP) President Akhilesh Yadav, saying that in the coming days the latter “will be the one running away to Pakistan”.

Rajbhar’s reaction comes a day after the SP chief said: “My colleague has asked if ‘P’ means Pakistan. If I say, ‘BJP, go to Pakistan,’ or if I say, ‘Go away to Pakistan,” while addressing an event.

Akhilesh Yadav was referring to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s remark that the “P” in “PDA” stands for Pakistan.

Speaking to IANS, OP Rajbhar said: “Akhilesh Yadav is neither talking about education, nor about distributing the 27 per cent reservation for the Backward Classes, nor about healthcare or peace and harmony. He always uses the language of hatred and keeps talking about hatred. In the coming days, you will see that Akhilesh Yadav will be the one running away to Pakistan.”

Days after Yadav alleged that the BJP is working on a plan to allocate seats to its allied parties, “in the prospect of defeat” in the upcoming polls in Uttar Pradesh and even went on to give details of the purported seat sharing of the ruling alliance, Rajbhar claimed: “He (Akhilesh) is himself desperate to join the NDA. That is why he even put up a seat-sharing calculation.”

“Before Jayant ji and I joined him, they (SP) had only 47 seats. Only after we joined him, the alliance registered victory in 125 seats. Now since Jayant ji and I both have moved away (from the alliance with SP), they are wondering about their future,” he said.

The UP Minister claimed that after his exit from the alliance with SP, “the latter has faced losses in Ambedkar Nagar, Ghazipur, Azamgarh, etc., in fact in the entire Purvanchal region”.

Regarding the anti-reservation protest, Rajbhar said: “We support reservation. The reservation provided by Babasaheb Dr B.R. Ambedkar was meant to bring those at the lowest rung of society into the mainstream of development. Reservation is not being given to just one person or one community.”

“The Constitution provides for four categories; the general category also has 10 per cent reservation (economically weaker sections), the Backward Classes have 27 per cent, and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have 22.5 per cent. So, everyone is getting reservation, including the backward classes and Dalits. However, people tend to focus only on the Backward and Dalit communities because they constitute a large section of the population, around 85 per cent, which is why it seems that they are getting an 85 per cent share,” he added.

A day earlier, Akhilesh Yadav had also said: “Reservation was, is and will remain”.

–IANS

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