New Delhi: Taking on Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress over ‘terrorism’ in Uttar Pradesh’s Azamgarh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said during the rule of the previous governments, the district was infamous for terror activities and it is only under Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government that this place is witnessing development. Addressing the public after laying the foundation stone of Hariharpur Music college and various other development projects in the district, the Union Minister said PM Modi has “opened the government purse for the development of Uttar Pradesh”.
“I still remember, when I was Gujarat Home Minister and a blast happened in Ahmedabad and when police were arresting the culprits, the mastermind behind the blast was caught from Azamgarh…Azamgarh’s image was destroyed by the previous governments,” Amit Shah said.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had earlier said that Azamgarh faced an identity crisis due to the terror tag attached to the district and that some of the accused involved in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blasts and Delhi's Batla House encounter hailed from this area.
Addressing the public, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said, "Before 2017, there was an identity crisis in Azamgarh. Before 2017, when the youth of Azamgarh used to go anywhere in the country, people used to get irritated and hesitated to give them a room on rent. PM Narendra Modi gifted Purvanchal Expressway to Azamgarh."
It is to be noted that in 2022 bypolls, BJP candidate and Bhojpuri star Dinesh Lal Yadav "Nirahua" won from Azamgarh, an SP stronghold, after the seat was vacated by party chief Akhilesh Yadav on becoming an MLA.
While Akhilesh had won from Azamgarh in 2019, his father Mulayam Singh Yadav represented the Lok Sabha constituency in 2014.
The Union Minister earlier in the day inaugurated the 'Kaushambi Festival 2023' in Uttar Pradesh and hit out at the Congress saying that the party's politics of dynasty and autocracy by one family is in danger.
"They (Congress) say democracy is in danger. It is not democracy that is in danger, it is your family that is in danger. People don't want the Idea of India to remain in danger. The idea of one dynasty, your politics promoting your (Gandhi) family is in danger. It's not India's democracy that is in danger, but the autocracy of your family that is in danger," he said.