Akhilesh, Mayawati, Rahul should clarify stand on Ram temple: Amit Shah

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah on Friday dared the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Congress to clear their stands on the Ram temple construction. Addressing a gathering of party workers of the Gorakhpur region, the BJP leader said while his party was all for early construction of the Ram temple at the site where Lord Ram was born, the Opposition was tied into knots on account of its appeasement politics.

"Bua-Bhatija and Rahul Baba should clarify their stands on this important issue," the BJP President said while reassuring party workers that there was no need to worry about the SP-BSP alliance. He added that the coming together of the arch-rivals was out of the fear of being wiped out but the alliance would take them nowhere.

"The voters of Uttar Pradesh will wipe out the alliance and will give us more than the 73 seats we won in 2014," he assured. Shah said while the SP, BSP and the Congress only paid lip service to their voters, it was the BJP that got the other backward castes and the extremely backward constitutional approval.

Claiming that the likes of Imran Bhai, Azam Khan and Naseemuddin Siddiqui ruled the roost during SP-BSP's 'nizam-raj', Shah said that it had been finished by the BJP. "They had made a terror corridor, which has been destroyed by the BJP government led by Yogi Adityanath," he said. Shah also slammed the Congress for promising that it would reverse the Triple Talaq bill when it comes to power and said the country cannot be run like this as the rights of every woman, including those of Muslims, are to be accepted.

(With inputs from agencies.)