Yogi Adityanath evokes sentiments of 61’s Language movement; Tries to strike local chords

It’s only 7 days to go until campaigning for the Assam assembly elections gets over for good. Before that arrives, to turn the stakes in favour of the BJP candidates, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday addressed the people in three areas of the Cachar district. However, the excitement that was expected of him did not materialize at all. He waited at the circuit house for more than an hour after arriving in Silchar, for the venue to be filled with a crowd of supporters. Even when Yogi Adityanath got up in the dias, MP Rajdeep Roy asked the police officers over the mic to send in those who were standing outside the ground. But even wasn’t enough to fill most of the India Club field.

But in his speech, he mentioned the Bhasha Andolan of 1961 and the partition of India to appeal to the sentiments & emotion of the Barak Valley people. The Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and BJP’s Hindutva poster boy, Yogi Adityanath got up in the dias around 2 pm. Members of various branches of the party handed over to him some gifts containing Shitalpati, a Durga idol and several gifts associated with the Assamese culture.

Yogi Adityanath did not give a very long speech but wanted to touch on several issues. Initially blaming the Congress party for the partition, he said, “Today there would have been no country called Bangladesh or Pakistan and the citizenship issue wouldn’t have reached so deep. Of course, the Congress party is responsible for this. Later, in 1971, they tried to impose a language law on the people of the Barak Valley, where 11 men and women had to give up their lives in the city. In the last five years, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has solved the issues of the rebels in the state and thereby ensuring peace has prevailed. Barak Valley is not just a part of Assam but also one of the most important parts of the country. If we talk about the Kamakhya temple in Assam, at the same time the smell of Barak tea invokes in our minds. The Congress party did not allow this region to get developed. Today they have joined hands with the AIUDF and leftist parties. The people have already rejected the Left from West Bengal and Tripura. This time the Congress is contesting the elections in Assam in coalition with them. The people will reject this Congress too.”

Referring to the Gandhi family, he said, “The people of this country have been under their power for decades but the Congress leaders were never there by their side during their difficult days. Whenever the country is in a difficult situation, the Congress leaders get reminded of their grandmothers and they leave for Italy to spend their holidays there. The BJP leaders try to solve the problems by being with the people themselves. Congress leaders show up to the people during the election campaign only, they are not found the rest of the time.”

He also compared the Congress and the BJP in various contexts and appealed to supporters to vote for the party’s candidate. It was alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not meet the local candidates during the party’s recent victory campaign in Karimganj and did not speak to them. Yogi Adityanath, however, did not think so. The CM of Uttar Pradesh promoted the party’s candidates by highlighting many details of their campaign as well.