“Akhilesh Babu would say to me in Parliament that dear home minister, removal of Article 370 would lead to bloodshed. Who are you threatening Akhilesh, we are not scared of your hollow threats. No one dared to throw a stone, let alone bloodshed, Shah said. He said the BJP government worked for the country’s unity besides prosperity, education and to encourage its own culture as he addressed the rally in support of BJP candidate Nagesh Pratap Singh in Rampur Khas of Pratapgarh.

The district has seven assembly seats, of which two each were won by BJP, Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Independent candidates, while Rampur Khas was the lone seat retained by Congress’s Aradhna Mishra alias Mona. Mishra had won the Rampur Khas seat in a by-election in 2014 and then again in the 2017 assembly polls, continuing from her father who has been an MLA from the constituency for consecutive nine terms since 1980.

Lauding Yogi Adityanath’s chief ministership, Shah said in five years of the party’s rule in Uttar Pradesh crime cases, including rape, murder, dacoity and kidnapping, have gone down significantly.

“Dacoity reduced by 72 per cent, loot went down by 62 per cent, murders by 31 per cent, kidnapping by 29 per cent, while rape cases went down by 50 per cent. This has been done by the BJP government, Shah said. He attributed the nurturing of criminal elements to previous governments of SP and BSP, and asked people to vote for the BJP if they wanted criminals to stay behind bars.

“This SP-BSP, BSP-SP, the governments of ‘bua and bhatija’ pushed the state into control of strongmen and mafia. The BJP government in just five years relieved the state of mafia, Shah said, referring to Mayawati as ‘bua’ and Akhilesh Yadav as ‘bhatija’. Citing examples of jailed politicians like Ateeq Ahmed (SP), Mukhtar Ansari (BSP), and Azam Khan (SP), he targeted the previous governments for patronising mafia.