SP using Azam Khan as weapon against PM Modi: BJP

Rejecting Azam Khan's 'baseless' allegations of Prime Minister Narendra Modi meeting gangster Dawood Ibraham in Lahore, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday said that Akhilesh Yadav-led Uttar Pradesh Government was using the minister as a weapon ahead of the assembly polls in 2017.

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"This is all a well-planned strategy of the Akhilesh Yadav-led Government to hide their failures in the state. Akhilesh Yadav is using Azam Khan to mislead the people of Uttar Pradesh by making such baseless allegations so that no one talks about their own failures," BJP leader Srikant Sharma told ANI.

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"Prime Minister Modi has been working for the eradication of poverty, improving the situation of farmers and bringing the overall development of the country. On the other hand, there is a competition among all the anti-development parties as to who can use more ill words for the Prime Minister Modi. The statement made by Azam Khan is on those lines only," he added.

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Earlier, Khan claimed that he had proof of India's most-wanted gangster Dawood Ibrahim being present during Prime Minister Modi's surprise meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Lahore last year.

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However, the government has rubbished Khan's allegation as 'false and baseless'.

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"There are certain statements in a section of press that prime accused in serial blasts in Mumbai, Dawood Ibrahim, was also present during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Lahore on December 25, 2015. These statements are baseless, unfounded and totally false," said a clarification issued from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.