By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
Former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat on Sunday criticised Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav over his controversial reference to people from Uttarakhand as “infiltrators” in Uttar Pradesh, saying the remark was unfortunate and unacceptable.
Harish Rawat’s response came a day after Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami demanded a public apology from Yadav, accusing him of insulting the people of Uttarakhand and their sacrifices. BJP leaders, including Anukruti Gusain, Ganesh Joshi and Deepti Rawat, have also criticised the SP chief over the remark. BJP leader Deepti Rawat launched a sharp attack on Akhilesh Yadav, saying his remark insulted not only the people of Uttarakhand but also millions of Indians who contribute to the country through their hard work and patriotism. She accused Yadav, whom she described as a close political ally of Rahul Gandhi, of exposing his attitude towards Uttarakhand and its people.
In a statement, Harish Rawat said, “Akhilesh Yadav ji’s statement is very unfortunate and completely unwarranted. At the time of the division, whichever region a person chose as their karmabhoomi (place of work), whether the area was in Uttar Pradesh or Uttarakhand, that person became a citizen of that state and enjoys the same rights as any other citizen.” Emphasising the shared history of the two states, Rawat said people from Uttarakhand had made Uttar Pradesh their workplace, just as many people from Uttar Pradesh had settled in Uttarakhand. Political differences should not lead to the use of language that questions the rights or belonging of citizens, he said.
Rawat, however, stopped short of endorsing the BJP’s political attack on Yadav. He suggested that the SP chief may have been referring to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath while making the remark but should not have dragged Uttarakhand into the controversy. He urged Yadav to correct his statement.
The controversy erupted after Yadav, while speaking to reporters in Lucknow on Friday, questioned who the biggest infiltrators in Uttar Pradesh were and referred to people from Uttarakhand. The Samajwadi Party subsequently clarified that the remark was directed at an individual and was not intended to insult the people of the state.
Dhami, in his response on Saturday, invoked the 1994 Rampur Tiraha firing on activists demanding a separate Uttarakhand state during the tenure of Yadav’s father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, as Uttar Pradesh chief minister. He said the people of Uttarakhand had not forgotten the sacrifices made during the statehood movement and demanded a public apology from Akhilesh Yadav.
The row has also placed the Congress in a politically delicate position, with the party being the principal Opposition in Uttarakhand and an ally of the Samajwadi Party in the INDIA bloc. Dhami has challenged the Congress to clarify whether it agrees with Yadav’s remark.
Rawat’s intervention brings a distinction into the debate: while criticising the SP chief’s choice of words, he has stressed the constitutional rights of citizens to live and work across state boundaries, rather than allowing the controversy to become solely a confrontation between political parties.