Lucknow

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday blamed the Congress for Partition and asserted that had Narendra Modi been the prime minister of India then, there would have been no damage to the nation.

He also said that if a person like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel were the prime minister at that time, nobody would have been able to disintegrate India.

Speaking at a function in Lucknow to mark the horrors of the 1947 Partition, Adityanath held the Congress "truly responsible for the Partition" and subsequent massacre.

"Had Narendra Modi been the prime minister of India at the time of Independence, nobody would have been able to damage India in the slightest," he said.

"If a person like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel were the prime minister at that time, nobody would have been able to disintegrate India ... The country had to pay a heavy price for the cowardice of these Congress members -- a character you all witnessed during the CAA protests," he added.

The BJP leader also alleged that in 1947, Pakistan got the share of land which it never even asked for.

Sindh was a Hindu-dominated and Sindhi-dominated area, which was forcibly handed over to Pakistan; similarly, Punjabi-dominated Punjab was handed over, he claimed.

"Bengal was Bengali-dominated. All Hindu villages were forcibly given to Bangladesh. This shameful act was committed by the Congress, which was extra-restless for power, and on whom the country had reposed its trust. It repaid that trust with betrayal," Adityanath said.

The chief minister alleged that the Congress was silent even when Hindus were attacked in Bangladesh.

"They feared that reacting to the events in Bangladesh might cause their vote bank here to drift away. To them, the murder of Dalit Hindus holds no significance; what matters is their own vote bank," he said.

Adityanath accused the Congress of prioritising power and treating the country as its personal property and a family legacy.

He also said that the country became a "slave" due to infighting and caste, region, and language divisions.

"When such infighting exists, then conspiracy easily creeps in," he said.

Adityanath said India continues to pay for the mistakes of Partition in the form of terrorism, Naxalism, Maoism, and extremism.

He also sought to discredit Congress's contributions to the freedom struggle.

"This also draws our attention to the silence we have all maintained regarding that pre-1947 conspiracy. Yet, even today, these people move before society, acting as if they were the ones who created India, and that without them, India would not have come into existence. It is a truly strange situation," he said, as he termed Partition the "darkest chapter of humanity."

"Every institution in the country came to bear the name of that very clan. Every single institution was named after that clan, and we all stood by silently, merely watching. What are they doing even today? What are their actions like now?" he said about Congress.

Adityanath also took exception to the Congress's opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

"There was no justification for opposing the act. The act contained a provision regarding Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh -- territories that were once part of undivided India and share a heritage spanning thousands of years. It stipulated that if a Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Parsi, or Christian from these countries had been forced to leave and had sought refuge in India for five years, they would be granted Indian citizenship, he said.

"Nowhere did it say that we would seize land belonging to Muslims, the Congress, or the Samajwadi Party. There was no such provision in the Act. Yet, attempts were made to incite agitation across the country," he said.

The chief minister said that had the Samajwadi Party been at the helm in Uttar Pradesh, it would still be burning with riots.

"What kind of unbridled mayhem would have taken place? The rioters knew the price they would have to pay, which is why they could not act as they pleased; yet, their audacity was evident," he said.

"If you wish to see their true character, you would have witnessed it during the CAA protests, and their silence regarding the recent events in Bangladesh once again puts them in the dock," Adityanath said.

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As part of the event, he and other party leaders took out a silent march from the statue of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to Lok Bhavan, the UP government said.