Ready to face united Opp challenge: Shah

National president of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Amit Shah has given an open challenge to the Opposition to face the rising popularity of the party in UP in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. “Even if bua and bhatija are united and supported by Rahul Baba, they won’t be able to make any difference as BJP would end up getting 74 seats (out of 80) from UP,” Shah said while addressing a rally at Bekaley Ground in the trans-Ganga township of Deen Dayal Nagar (Mughalsarai) in Chandauli district on Sunday.

Earlier, Shah, along with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and others, rechristened Mughalsarai railway station as Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Junction and laid the foundation stone of DDU Smriti Sthal, to be developed near Parao, which separates Varanasi and Chandauli across the Ganga river. Now, Parao will also be known as DDU Crossing where a grand statue of Deen Dayal Upadhyay will be installed and a museum will come up besides other facilities.

Shah’s address indicated that the BJP is already in election mode and ready to face the stiff challenge from a united Opposition. The BJP chief said that people of the state had suffered a lot during the 15-year-rule of SP and BSP when ‘goonda raj’ prevailed. Challenging Congress president Rahul Gandhi, he asked him to make his stand clear over whether or not he wanted Bangladeshi intruders to stay in the country. “People of UP would not like any Bangladeshi intruder to stay in the state,” he claimed. Shah also accused the Opposition of playing vote bank politics on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) issue. In a bid to woo the OBCs (aware of the fact that their support had played a key role in party’s thumping performances in the last Lok Sabha and UP Assembly elections), the BJP chief said: “The Modi government is going to bring OBC Bill irrespective of whether the Opposition supports it or not, to give constitutional rights and respect to backward castes.” The Constitution (123rd Amendment) Bill, 2017, commonly known as OBC bill, was passed in the Lok Sabha on August 2 and will now go to the Rajya Sabha for passage. The proposed legislation seeks to grant the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) constitutional status on a par with National Commissions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Besides, the Central government was also going to bring a bill to ensure giving one-and-a-half time more minimum support prize (MSP) to all crops of rabi and kharif crops, he added. Recently, the Centre had announced the MSP for only 14 crops of kharif, but Shah said that the same would be for both rabi and kharif crops. “Earlier, the UPA government had allotted Rs 3.3 lakh crore to UP but since the Modi government came to power, it has given Rs 8.08 lakh crore to UP, focusing on Purvanchal and Bundelkhand regions,” Shah said, adding: “During the 2014 elections, I had always said that to reach Delhi, the path went through Lucknow and now for 2019, I still feel that to return to power at the Centre, the way passes through UP.” Earlier, Adityanath also attacked his predecessors for bringing development to a virtual standstill in the state. “That the Akhilesh government was apathetic to the Central projects can be judged by the fact that during the first three years of Modi government, only 10 toilets were constructed under the Clean India Mission while during just a short span of BJP government, 1.03 crore toilets have already been constructed so far,” he said, highlighting the achievements of his government responding to various Central schemes. Responding to the dream of the PM to provide shelter to everyone by 2022, he said that about 8.85 lakh houses had been constructed in rural and 4.32 lakh houses in urban areas in the state so far,” he said, adding: “We are doing such remarkable work because we are not adopting a biased attitude based on caste and religion, and our intentions are fair.” The function was also addressed by Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Manoj Sinha, BJP state chief & Chandauli MP Mahendra Nath Pandey and Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya among others. On the occasion, Shah launched many other projects worth over Rs 100 crore and flagged off Ekatmata Express (twice a week) between DDU Junction and Lucknow via Sultanpur and a goods train run by an all-women crew. Shah also felicitated some veteran party workers who had worked along with Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyay during the Jan Sangh time.