Ram Gopal Yadav’s ‘casteist’ remarks on Vyomika Singh spark row

Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav on Thursday kicked up a row by claiming that the PDA (backward, minority, Dalit) was responsible for the success of Operation Sindoor and that the BJP was quick to take “political mileage” out of it.

Speaking at an event in Moradabad, he noted, “Wing Commander Vyomika Singh is Jatav of Haryana. But the BJP considered her a Rajput, and BJP’s Madhya Pradesh minister abused Colonel Sofia Qureshi because she is a Muslim.”

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“Marshal Awadhesh Kumar Bharti is a Yadav, who carried out Operation Sindoor. So, one is a Muslim, the second Jatav, and the third Yadav. These three belong to the PDA. So the PDA fought this entire war, then on what basis the BJP is trying to take credit for it?” he said.

Yadav also hit out at the Narendra Modi dispensation at the Centre for giving a political hue to the India-Pakistan escalation on the borders following Operation Sindoor.

“… there was a war with Pakistan for three days, then someone (US President Donald Trump) threatened and stopped the war. Peace cannot be compared to war, but evil should be treated with wickedness and it is what everyone wants,” he added.

“So far, whenever there has been a war between India and Pakistan, India has won. However, the political leadership never tried to take credit for it. First, the country’s current political leadership wants to grab the credit of the army,” he alleged.

The party general secretary also took offence to the ‘Tiranga Yatra’ taken out by the saffron party across the country to create awareness about Operation Sindoor. He questioned the BJP on why it did not include all other parties in the Yatra.

“… the BJP is taking out Tiranga Yatra in the country because the party is always in election mode. I want to ask two questions from the BJP. Firstly, did the BJP leaders and workers go to fight the war on the border and secondly, did their children go to the war?

“If it is not so, then why is only one party trying to take credit for it? The government should have taken out the Tiranga Yatra by taking all the parties in confidence,” he added.

Meanwhile,  Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath reacted sharply to the controversial statement made by Yadav.

“The army uniform is not seen from ‘casteist glasses’. Every soldier of the Indian Army plays ‘Rashtra dharma’, not a representative of any caste or religion. Restricting a heroic daughter, by the Samajwadi Party’s national general secretary, to the periphery of caste is not only a demonstration of his party’s narrow thinking, but also a gross insult to the bravery of the army and the identity of the country,” he said in a social media post.