Former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav, who might soon be in trouble due to the continual uncovering of scams that took place during his regime, today decided to add to his troubles by issuing highly irresponsible statement about the armed forces.
Today as the nation was paying tribute to Lt Ummer Fayaz who was killed by terrorists on Tuesday, Akhilesh Yadav came out with this statement:
#BREAKING: Akhilesh Yadav politicises blood of martyrs. Asks, ‘Any martyrs from Gujarat?’ #AkhileshInsultsMartyrs
— Republic (@republic) May 10, 2017
This statement ended up rubbing salt on the emotional wounds of citizens who were already incensed after learning that stone pelters had attacked the funeral of Lt Ummer Fayaz in Jammu and Kashmir.
What made matters worse was that the Congress party too decided to silently endorse Akhilesh’s comments.
Rather than talking a lot about Akhilesh’s statement (frankly it doesn’t even merit a response, as only in February this year at least 3 jawans from Army sacrificed their lives in Jammu & Kashmir), let’s see how much respect Akhilesh has for martyrs.
Since he counts martyrdom along regional lines, Akhilesh surely must be holding the martyrs from his home state of Uttar Pradesh in high regard. As after all, according to him, it seems to matter as to from where the martyrs came from and he must have been especially proud about a martyr who hailed from UP.
Well this is how he behaved when he went to the house of slain Captain Ayush Yadav who lost his life while battling terrorists in Kupwara on 27th April.
Rather than going quietly, Akhilesh reached Captain Ayush’s house in Kanpur on 28th April with a string of his supporters. As he reached, he was greeted by the uncle of Captain Ayush, who gave him a seat on the ground floor of their house. He was asked to wait a bit as the parents were upstairs meeting an Army Colonel and were also signing a few papers.
After waiting for three minutes hardly, Akhilesh started getting impatient. On top of it, his supporters were causing a commotion outside as they desperately were trying to enter Captain Ayush’s house to meet their leader Akhilesh Yadav.
Soon Akhilesh ran out of patience and asked as to how much longer would it take before he could meet Captain Ayush’s house. He was told to wait a little more. This reportedly incensed Akhilesh and he arrogantly asked whether the Colonel had a bigger stature than him.
He didn’t stop at that and literally barged upstairs to reach where the parents and the Colonel were sitting. Over there, he barely spent a minute talking before leaving the house.
The incident was reported in press though it didn’t make national headlines. But local people were unhappy. Akhilesh saw it fit to respond to the whole incident after five days. In his response he just tried to play down the whole incident and took the usual route by claiming that it was over-hyped by the media.
Perhaps, he will say it again. That his statements were “twisted” by the media. But maybe he should take five minutes out again and introspect about his deeds and statements and the kind of impact they can have on the morale of the armed forces, whose only identity is being Indian.
