The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday slammed Uttar Pradesh's Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mohd Azam Khan for his derogatory remark on B.R.Ambedkar in Ghaziabad that the pointed finger of Ambedkar statue exhorts people to go in for land grabbing.Senior party leader Swamy Prasad Maurya, who recently switched sides from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to the BJP, said it was shameful and unfortunate that senior ministers of the state government were mouthing such remarks and were not being reprimanded by their leadership. "This statement is most unfortunate," he said and added that the pointed finger of statues of Ambedkar indicates towards parliament and urges Dalits to empower themselves so that the country is ruled by them.
Saying that in the past too, Khan has been making uncharitable remarks about senior people, including those holding constitutional posts, Maurya retorted that, in fact, everyone knew that in the regime of the Samajwadi Party (SP), land grabbing had been institutionalised. The ruling party had coined a slogan that meant all vacant plots needed to be grabbed.BJP leaders said even Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had on many occasions publicly said that the ministers and senior party leaders were busy grabbing land and amassing ill-gotten money. Khan, without directly naming Ambedkar, on Monday said in Ghaziabad, that wherever there are statues of this particular person, he was found pointing a straight finger suggesting followers to grab the plot of land.