NEW DELHI: Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday launched a sharp attack on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, calling him an “infiltrator” who should be sent back to Uttarakhand. Speaking to reporters in Lucknow on the death anniversary of socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia, Yadav accused the ruling BJP of peddling fake data to mislead the public. “People who are giving the statistics of exodus, we also have intruders in UP. The chief minister is from Uttarakhand. We want him to be sent to Uttarakhand,” he said. Yadav went further to call Adityanath an “ideological infiltrator”. “He was not a member of the BJP; he belonged to another party. So, when will these infiltrators be removed?” the former chief minister said, referring to Adityanath’s earlier association with the Hindu Yuva Vahini before joining the BJP.

Yadav’s remarks came shortly after Union home minister Amit Shah accused some political parties of treating “infiltrators” as a vote bank. Shah on Friday, had questioned why infiltration does not take place along the Gujarat and Rajasthan borders, both BJP-ruled states.