Jewar, Nov 25 (UNI) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday once again mentioned Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, as he addressed a massive crowd at a ceremony where Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the Noida International Airport.
Speaking in western Uttar Pradesh, which is known as the sugar bowl of India, Yogi said people need to choose whether they want the 'sweetness of sugarcane' or the bitterness of riots that will be unleashed by "followers of Jinnah" when they would cause disharmony.
"Farmers here have always tried to spread the sweetness of sugarcane... However, some people converted the sweetness of sugarcane into bitterness and caused a series of riots here," he said.
"Today the country has to decide whether they will give new boost to the sweetness of sugarcane, or they will let the followers of Jinnah cause riots here," the chief minister added.
In a controversial remark last month, Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav had compared Jinnah with Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, First Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his Deputy PM Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
At an election campaign in Hardoi on October 31, Akhilesh Yadav praised Patel, country's first Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, on his 146th birth anniversary.
He also said, "Sardar Patel, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jinnah studied at the same institute and became barristers. They became barristers and they fought for India's freedom. They never backed away from any struggle".
On Thursday, as the foundation stone for the airport was laid down, Akhilesh Yadav took a jibe at the BJP and said they are making the airport to sell it in the future.
Once completed, the government said it will be the biggest airport in the country. The development of the first phase of the airport is being done at a cost of over Rs 10,050 crore.
Spread over more than 1,300 hectares of land, the completed first phase of the airport will have a capacity to serve around 1.2 crore passengers a year and work on it is scheduled to be completed by 2024.
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