JAUNPUR/GHAZIPUR: Taking a dig at the BSP and its election symbol, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday suggested that the rations meant for the common people were gobbled by the "elephant" when the party was in power in the state.
The remark comes days after he said that during the previous Akhilesh Yadav government, rations meant for the people used to go to "people who say abba jaan", an apparent attack against the Muslim community and the Samajwadi Party (SP).
"Abba jaan" is an Urdu term for father.
"Did you get rations during the SP government? Before the SP government, during the tenure of Mayawati, the elephant's stomach was so big that it was difficult to understand where the public's ration was going," the chief minister said at a public meeting after inaugurating projects worth crores of rupees in the Mungra Badshahpur area of Jaunpur.
"Earlier, neither Durga puja was held nor was Ramlila. Though there was no coronavirus earlier, the governments did not allow yagya or Durga puja. But this time, Durga puja will be allowed," the chief minister said, as per the official Twitter account of the BJP.
Earlier it was just "me and my family" for the chief minister.
While the people of the state were in the grip of serious diseases, the Saifai family was organising dance and song programmes by inviting big personalities, he said, apparently referring to the Samajwadi Party.
At an event in Ghazipur, Adityanath said his government knows how to deal with goons and mafia, and bulldozers were being used against them in the state, again a reference to the SP.
Last week, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav had suggested that the BJP needed to change its election symbol to a bulldozer, referring to the government's drive to pull down alleged unauthorised buildings.