Author: Aman Sharma, ET Bureau
Publication: The Economic Times
Date: August 18, 2014
URL: http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-08-18/news/52942292_1_bjp-mp-riots-sp-government

On a day when the Samajwadi Party government blamed the BJP for inciting the Saharanpur riots, Yogi Adityanath, an influential BJP leader from East UP, tells ET's Aman Sharma that an impartial inquiry into the recent riots would put the SP government in the dock for collusion.

The UP government has blamed the BJP for Saharanpur riots today. Isn't BJP playing with fire in UP?

It is ironical that those who doused the fire in Saharanpur, the BJP government at the Centre, is being blamed for igniting it. Is it not a fact that the Allahabad HC had given a verdict in favour of the Sikhs and ordered protection be given for the construction of a gurudwara? The police and the administration knew that the Muslims had held a meeting, yet they didn't intervene. Ultimately, a group of 2,000 Muslims ran riot for five hours under the leadership of a political person who is close to CM Akhilesh Yadav. SP's own senior leader Ram Gopal Yadav has told Parliament last week that all the 17 persons arrested for Saharanpur riots by the Police are Muslims. So how is the BJP involved in the riots?

SP's Naresh Agarwal has said that since the role of a BJP MP has come to the fore, it can be said that BJP also has a role.

 The fact remains that the riots stopped only after Home Minister Rajnath Singh called the UP CM and told him to control things and also sent in 600 CRPF men to Saharanpur who controlled the riots. The BJP government stopped the riots, rather than starting them. I believe the UP government report also blames administrative lapses for the riots, so by that logic, it can also be said that the SP government has a role in the riots. Who will probe that?

Congress and SP allege a bigger design behind the repeated riots in the state and say BJP wants to deliberately polarise the state.

 There have been 430 communal disturbances in UP during the tenure of Akhilesh government. Is BJP behind all of them? The Assembly elections in UP are in 2017 — twoand-a-half years away. BJP will storm to power in the next state elections like we did in the LS elections in UP in 2014. It is the SP which is using Muslim polarisation to incite riots as it knows that it doesn't stand a chance in 2017. This government needs to be dismissed.

So why doesn't the BJP govt in Centre dismiss the UP govt?

 An elected government should be allowed to continue, but things cannot be as usual if communal riots aimed at the Hindus continue to happen in UP. I would certainly appeal to Home Minister to impose President's Rule in UP as the state government is failing in its basic law and order duties. I am, in fact, sure that an inquiry by a SC Judge into all riots would reveal that SP is in fact a party of rioters, that it has incited riots and protected those who are behind them, and the Yadav family could find itself cooling its heels behind bars.

Political leaders say your views before the House only shows how BJP is polarising matters in the state...