BJP, BSP and SP responsible for UP's backwardness: Ghulam Nabi Azad

Holding BJP, BSP and SP responsible for the backwardness of Uttar Pradesh, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad today said the three parties have divided the people of the state on caste and community lines for the past three decades.

"BJP, BSP and the Samajwadi Party have been dividing people in the name of caste and community. This has led to the backwardness of the state", the Leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha and incharge of party's state affairs, told media persons here.

Leading the party's "27 saal, UP behal yatra", ahead of 2017 UP elections, Azad said that Congress is fighting to change the scenario in the state as the governments which have been at the helm for the past three decades have not given justice to common people. Only the 10 per cent who managed to get justice were musclemen, he alleged.

BJP claimed that it will bring back black money which has not been done in these two years, Azad said. Taking a dig at the Samajwadi Party, he said that rather than providing jobs to the youth, it has been distributing laptops.

"In the atmosphere of hatred, Congress has come to connect people with each other", he said.

While replying to a question, Azad, the former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, asked Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to stop dreaming of "annexing" Kashmir.

"This dream of theirs led to the division of their own country and Bangladesh was created. But Pakistan could not take an inch of our land, they should protect what they have got", he said.

Newly appointed UPCC president Raj Babbar said the scenario in the past 27 years has been spoiled and the people of the state will have to think as to which party will be able to take the state ahead on the path of development and amity.

Babbar said that Congress will get into alliance in the state only with its people and no one else.

"In UP, one party was given the mandate in 2007 in the name of caste but it was not able to give anything to the people.

"Again in 2012, another party got the mandate which should have given employment to the people but nothing happened...In 2014 Lok Sabha elections, one party got 73 seats and now people should ask as to what they have given to the state", Babbar added.