Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday said that people who left their homes in Pakistan after Partition and those who fled persecution in Bangladesh lived without citizenship or land for decades until his government came to power.
Speaking at a function in Lucknow to mark the 'Partition Horrors Remembrance Day', Adityanath also blamed the Congress for failing to grant citizenship to the displaced people and said "enemy property" should have been distributed among Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains arriving from Pakistan.
Enemy property is land left behind by people who migrated to a country considered an enemy nation.
The chief minister said that when he visited Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh, he found approximately 8,000 to 10,000 people who had been expelled from Pakistan living there.
"Just imagine, they had arrived from Pakistan in 1947, yet they had not found a permanent place to call home. They included Sikhs and Punjabis. We granted them citizenship, and provided them with land documents.
"I also visited Pilibhit, where we regularised the documents of thousands of families expelled from Bangladesh. We provided them with land documents and citizenship for them as well."
He added that persecuted Hindus and Buddhists expelled from Bangladesh were granted citizenship in Lakhimpur Kheri as well.
In Rampur, too, there are Sikhs expelled from Pakistan, Adityanath said, adding that their documents are currently being rectified, and the process of granting them citizenship is underway.
"In the first place, the Partition of the country should not have happened. But, once the tragedy of Partition occurred, it was the Congress's responsibility to prioritise granting citizenship and providing land leases to the displaced people," he said.
The chief minister said it should have allocated land equivalent to the property that had been destroyed or confiscated in Pakistan.
"Instead, they were preoccupied with protecting 'enemy property' and sharing it among themselves. They were using that very property as a means for plunder and personal gain, turning it into their own private assets. This property should have been distributed among the Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains arriving from there (Pakistan)," Adityanath said.
He also alleged that Congress leaders made efforts to save the entire estate of the Nawab of Mahmudabad even though the man was the treasurer of the Muslim League.
