Muzaffarnagar not stadium for Hindu-Muslim matches: Tikait

With Assembly polls less than a week away in western Uttar Pradesh, farmer leader Rakesh Tikait made a veiled attack on the ruling BJP on Sunday as he said Muzaffarnagar is "not a stadium for Hindu-Muslim matches".

The national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), which is a part of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), said those talking on communal lines will not witness electoral gains in the region.

"Western Uttar Pradesh wants to talk about development. Those talking about Hindu, Muslim, Jinnah, religion will lose votes. Muzaffarnagar is not a stadium for Hindu-Muslim matches," Tikait said in a tweet in Hindi.

In another tweet, he called on people to question the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates in the upcoming polls about the farmers who lost their lives during their year-long protest against three agriculture laws of the Centre, which have now been repealed.

"The prime minister of the country has not even taken the name of the farmers who got martyred during the movement. Till date, the prime minister has avoided calling the farmers who lost their lives in the movement as martyrs. Farmers should question their candidates," Tikait said.

Tikait's BKU is headquartered in Muzaffarnagar district of western Uttar Pradesh.

Muzaffarnagar had witnessed communal riots in 2013, after which the dominant Jat and Muslim communities in the region had apparently grown apart.

The BJP had virtually swept the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls and the 2019 Lok Sabha election in the region, although the farmers' agitation against the Centre has witnessed the gap between the two communities bridging, according to political observers.

Polling is scheduled to be held in Muzaffarnagar in the first round of the seven-phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls on February 10. The counting of votes will be taken up on March 10.