Lucknow: Bharatiya Janata Party MP Yogi Adityanath will be party's star campaigner for the Uttar Pradesh bypolls scheduled for September next month, reports said on Thursday.
The BJP MP from Gorakhpur, along with Union Minister Kalraj Mishra and party's state unit president Laxmikant Bajpayee, have been chosen by the party high command to lead the poll campaign in the politically sensitive state.
Adityanath, who is known for his strong Hindutva sentiments, was recently caught on camera in an undated video addressing his supporters and saying that if members of a community convert a girl of another community, then at least 100 girls of their community should be converted.
Last month, the Gorakhpur MP had created a huge controversy while initiating a debate on Communal Violence Bill in the Parliament. The firebrand BJP leader had accused the opposition Congress of working at the behest of Pakistan.
Interestingly, Adityanath has been made the poll campaigner at a time when communal tensions are high in UP. The state has witnessed several communal violence incidents in the past one year. Of late the contentious issue of 'Love Jihad' is also flaring up.
The Samajwadi Party, Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party have been continuously accusing the BJP of spreading communal poison in UP.
While BJP has fielded 62-year-old Vimla Batham from Noida, the Congress and Samajwadi Party have fielded Rajendra Awana and Kajal Sharma respectively. Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) hasn't put forward any candidate for 11 Assembly and one Lok Sabha seat in UP.
In the 2014 General Elections the BJP with its alliance partners had won 73 seats out of 80 Lok Sabha seats. BJP president Amit Shah, who was heading UP unit during the parliamentary elections was credited for the emphatic performance of the party.
