UP bypolls: Congress targets BJP for making Yogi Adityanath incharge

NEW DELHI: Congress today criticised BJP for choosing controversial Hinduvta face Yogi Adityanath to steer its campaign for the September 13 bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, saying the party wants to create an "atmosphere of communalism and tension".

"They (BJP) want the communities to fight with one another. They want to bring in the discussion of majority and minority," Congress leader Manish Tewari said.

Without taking Adityanath's name, he said the BJP has given the responsibility of elections to a person who has left "no stone unturned" to implement this "policy".

"It is BJP's ambition that an atmosphere of communalism and tension prevails in the country," he said.

The Congress leader was replying to question about Adityanath and two others being made in-charge of the party's campaign to 11 Assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh.

Controversial BJP MLA Suresh Rana has also been given the responsibility to campaign in Bijnor constituency.

UP BJP chief Laxmikant Bajpai, Union minister Kalraj Mishra and Aditynath have been nominated to lead the campaign for the bypoll, party spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak had said in Lucknow yesterday.

Adityanath has sparked controversy due to his strong Hindutva remarks made during campaigning in the past.

The 11 vacancies in UP Assembly are the constituencies of Saharanpur Nagar, Bijnor, Thakurdwara, Noida, Nighasan, Lucknow East, Hamirpur, Charkhari, Sirathu, Balha and Rohaniya.

The stakes for BJP are high in UP as 10 of these 11 seats are being vacated by its leaders who have been elected MPs while Rohaniya seat is being vacated by ally Apna Dal as its leader Anupriya Patel was also elected to Lok Sabha.

BJP is putting all its might to win the seats vacated by its leaders even as it aims to form its own government in the state in the next Assembly polls slated in 2017.