Battle for UP: Yogi-Kejriwal in bitter Twitter war

Lucknow, Feb 8 (IANS) The war of words between Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal has intensified with the two leaders sharpening their claws on Twitter.

While Kejriwal said that his Uttar Pradesh counterpart a "harsh and cruel ruler", Yogi called the Delhi Chief Minister a "liar".

The Twitter war on Monday night started after Kejriwal's rebuttal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement in Parliament that Delhi and Maharashtra contributed to the spread of Covid by enabling the migrant labourers to go home after lockdown was declared in 2020.

"This statement of Prime Minister is a blatant lie. The country hopes that the Prime Minister will be sensitive to those who have suffered the pain in the Corona period, those who have lost their loved ones. It does not suit the Prime Minister to do politics on the sufferings of the people," the Delhi Chief minister said in a tweet in Hindi.

His Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also tweeted to say the Prime Minister's statement was "false".

Responding to the claim, Yogi said: "Today's statement of Arvind Kejriwal about respected Prime Minister is highly condemnable. Arvind Kejriwal should apologise to the entire nation."

He quoted a couplet from Goswami Tulsidas, the author of "Ram Charitmanas", to elucidate his point.

"Kejriwal has a knack of telling lies. When the whole country was battling a global pandemic like Corona under the leadership of the respected Prime Minister, Kejriwal showed the migrant labourers the way out of Delhi."

He then went on to accuse the Delhi Chief Minister of "cutting electricity and water" for migrant labourers and forcing them to leave the city.

"The electricity-water connection was cut and the sleeping people were picked up and sent to the UP border by buses. Announcement was made that in Anand Vihar, buses will be available for UP-Bihar. The UP government arranged buses for the migrant labourers and brought them back safely," Yogi further tweeted.

In a direct post, the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister said: "Listen Kejriwal, You forced the workers of UP to leave Delhi when the entire humanity was groaning due to the pain of Corona. Your government did an undemocratic and inhuman act like leaving even small children and women helpless on the UP border in the middle of the night. Call you a traitor or..."

Kejriwal reacted with: "You should not say anything. When bodies were floating in the rivers, you were spending crores on appreciating yourself through advertisements in the Time magazine. Have not seen a harsh and cruel ruler like you."