The VHP yatra could influence Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Delhi scheduled for later this year. They will see a straight battle between the BJP and the Congress ruling in two states each.
Samajwadi party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said “We will not let Uttar Pradesh become another Gujarat. There is no place for communal tension in the state.”
Meanwhile, Union minister Salman Khurshid said that the “Congress has no hand in putting brakes on VHP’s parikrama programme and the Samajwadi Party government has imposed a ban on it.”
“Though everyone has the right to follow the traditions of their respective religions and governments should respect them, we are opposed to religion being turned into politics and made its tool,” the Union minister said in Itah, according to PTI. Senior UP minister Azam Khan said “We have saved UP from any sort of confrontation which might had placed the large number of peace loving people in hardship,” Mr Khan said in Rampur, adding, “Very few detentions have taken place, otherwise everywhere there is calm and people are unfazed by VHP’s calls”.
He termed the yatra as an attempt to spoil the atmosphere of the state with an eye on the 2014 elections.
While BJP leaders M. Venkaiah Naidu, Uma Bharati, Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar disapproved the SP government’s action, the JD(U) said no politics should be played in places of worship.
The “BJP strongly condemns the action of the Uttar Pradesh government in arresting Ashok Singhal, in detaining the sadhus and sants from taking out the yatra. India is a free country. People have got every right to move around, to take out yatra. You can regulate the yatra. How can you stop it? It is all being done keeping in mind only vote-bank politics,” Mr Venkaiah Naidu told reporters.