BJP not to stop campaign against ‘love jihad’

Ashwin Shuklapaksha Trutiya, Kaliyug Varsha 5116

Party sources told The Hindu that their campaign would go on with the “same or even more vigour and focus”.

Meerut (Uttar Pradesh) : Despite the Bharatiya Janata Party’s loss to Samajwadi Party in the recent byelections in Uttar Pradesh, it’s campaign against the so-called ‘love jihad’ in Western UP will go on.

Party sources told The Hindu that their campaign would go on with the “same or even more vigour and focus”.

Ajay Tyagi, an industrialist who formed ‘Hindu Behen Beti Bachao Sangharsh Samiti’, refused to buy the argument that Mahant Adityanath’s campaign focussing on “love jihad” was responsible for the electoral drubbing.

As part of his Samiti’s work, Mr. Tyagi has started a Helpline to attend calls, according to him, by “distressed” Hindu parents about their daughters being lured in ‘love’ by Muslim men.

He told this correspondent that the BJP would have won more seats, had Adityanath visited more constituencies and raised the polarising issue. “Look at the facts. Mahant Adityanathji visited two constituencies — Noida and Lucknow — and spoke of ‘love jihad’. The BJP won both of them,” he said.

“Had he visited more areas and addressed more campaign meetings we would have won more seats,” added Mr. Tyagi, a civil engineer.

“As far as our campaign is concerned, we will continue with the same or in fact with more vigour and focus,” he said.

“We are going to file a petition in Allahabad High Court seeking an SIT investigation into links of madrasa’s with terror and ‘love jihad’,” said Mr. Tyagi, while boasting about the contribution of his team of 100-odd RSS volunteers who attend calls, upload Facebook messages, go door-to-door and hold protests in western UP against ‘love jihad’.

“Even today we received several calls from different areas of western UP from worried Hindu parents who have been troubled by Muslim youths,” he added.

Mr. Tyagi reminded about the ‘mahapanchayat’ against ‘love jihad’ which was announced early this month by Sangeet Som, the BJP MLA from Saradhana Assembly constituency in Meerut.

While Mr Som’s phone was switched off, his close aide Vinod said action against ‘love jihad’ should not be seen through “electoral prism.”

Source : The Hindu