Ballia (Uttar Pradesh):UP Minister and MLA from Ballia, Anand Swarup Shukla, has stoked a controversy with his remarks aimed at poet Munawwar Rana, saying that the latter and his family members always give controversial statements and that "surely those who stand against country will be killed, whoever they are." The Minister even went onto say that people like Munnavar Rana will not only have to leave the state, but also the country. "Munnavar Rana is one of those people who stayed in India after the partition of 1947 and is involved in a plot to break the country from within. Surely those people who will stand against Indians will be killed in encounter. PM Modi and CM Yogi government have confiscated assets worth more than 1200 crores by sending Islamic mafia to jail," Shukla alleged.
A few days earlier, Munawwar Rana had said that he would leave the state if Yogi Adityanath again becomes the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2022, adding that Adityanath can only become the CM again with the support of All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi. On the proposed UP Population Control Bill, Munawwar Rana had said, "Muslims have eight children so that even if the police pick up two children as terrorists and two children die of coronavirus, then four children would be present in their house to take care of the parents and later perform their last rites in the graveyard."