Ahead of the high octane assembly election in Uttar Pradesh, a video has gone viral on social media on Friday, February 4, wherein Samajwadi Party workers are heard raising pro-Pakistan and anti-national slogans. The footage is said to be from Kanpur, where Samajwadi Party supporters held a rally in favour of SP candidate Munindra Shukla, who is running for the assembly seat of Bithoor.
In the video which is being widely circulated on social media platforms, the SP cadres are heard saying: “Pakistan banana hai, cycle ka button dabana hai,” Which roughly translates to, “Pakistan has to be made, cycle button has to be pressed”.
कानपुर की बिठूर विधानसभा से सपा प्रत्याशी मुनींद्र शुक्ला के समर्थकों ने कथित तौर पर पाकिस्तान के समर्थन में लगाए नारे…
— Alok Kumar (@dmalok) February 4, 2022
साइकिल का बटन दबाना है पाकिस्तान बनाना है#SamajwadiParty #UttarPradeshElection2022 pic.twitter.com/TcDszINajx
After the purported video went viral, the police have launched an investigating into the same. They are trying to ascertain the authenticity of the video.
Samajwadi Party claimed that the video was manipulated and circulated by the opposition. Opposition parties edited the video and disseminated it on social media to smear the party’s reputation ahead of the approaching elections, alleged the SP members.
In response to the furore, SP candidate Munindra Shukla said that the purported video, which shows anti-national slogans being chanted during his public relations event in Tikra village, is completely false. He stated that the BJP changed the audio in the video. He said that the BJP edited the video and shared it on various social media platforms to confuse voters and disturb the region’s peacekeeping system. Samajwadi party is a nationalistic party, Shukla claimed.
He further added, “no one in my public relations department has the guts to make anti-national statements. We’re asking our supporters to be mindful of such ruses. As a result of the debacle that the party is set to face in the upcoming elections, the BJP is being compelled to adopt such strategies. I demand a fair probe into the purported video,” said SP candidate Munindra Shukla.
Pro-Pakistan slogans raised in SP rally at Agra
Amidst Munindra Shukla’s tall claims of his party being a nationalist party, it becomes imperative to recall that in July last year, pro-Pakistan slogans were allegedly raised by Samajwadi Party workers during a party rally organised in Agra. The viral video showed people present at the Samajwadi Party’s rally raising ‘Pakistan Zindabad slogans. The slogans were raised when Samajwadi Party cadres were returning from a rally they organised to protest against the BJP government for rising fuel prices and the alleged large scale “fraud” in the recently concluded Panchayat elections in the state.
Following the incident, BJP and various Hindu organisations attacked the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, asking whether Samajwadi Party was operating from Pakistan.
Interestingly, the raising of pro-Pakistan slogans by Samajwadi Party workers had come just days after former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav had courted a controversy by speaking against the state police’ action against Al Qaeda suspects.
Samajwadi Party chief calls Muhammad Ali Jinnah a patriot
Samajwadi Party chief’s affinity for Pakistan was once again on display when he went on to openly glorify Muhammad Ali Jinnah while addressing a party rally during the Samajwadi Vijay Rath Yatra in November last year. In the meeting that was organized at Hardoi district in UP, Samajwadi Party Chief was seen praising the founder of Pakistan and the architect of the Indian partition, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
On the pretext of remembering Sardar Patel, Akhilesh Yadav said, ‘Sardar Patel used to know the land, Sardar Patel took decisions holding the land, he used to understand the land so he made his decisions and that is why he is known as the Iron man Of India. Sardar Patel, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jinnah, they all came out of the same institution. They all studied at the same institute, they became barristers and gave freedom.’
BJP had then slammed Akhilesh Yadav for saying that Jinnah was a hero of India’s freedom movement. Moreover, a case was also filed against Akhilesh Yadav for praising Jinnah on the orders of a court in Bareilly.
