PM Modi carrying forward Syama Prasad Mookerjee's legacy: Yogi Adityanath

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is carrying forward the legacy of Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who was devoted to India and Indianism.

Paying floral tributes at his statue here at the Civil Hospital on his 123rd birth anniversary, Adityanath said that the country will always remember the sacrifices made by Mookerjee for the "unity and integrity of India."

He also described him as "a guiding light for India's industrial and food policies." The CM claimed that Mookerjee resigned from the first cabinet of the independent India and formed Jansangh when Jawaharlal Nehru adopted "appeasement" as a policy of his government.

The differences between Syama Prasad Mookerjee and Jawaharlal Nehru came into a sharper relief when the Nehru government "attempted to play with the unity and security of the country by forcibly adding Article 370 to the Indian Constitution" he said.

Mookerjee strongly opposed it and gave the slogan of 'Ek desh mein do Pradhan, do Vidhan, aur do Nishan, nahin chalenge' (A single country can't have two Prime Ministers, two constitutions, and two national emblems), he said.

The CM said Mookerjee served as the Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University and contributed significantly to the field of education at the age of just 33 years and showed exemplary humanism during the devastating famine in Bengal before independence.

"The ideology of Dr Mookerjee towards India is being implemented effectively under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The long-standing issue of Article 370, which had been in effect since 1952-1953, was abolished by Prime Minister Modi on August 5, 2019, and the democratic process was advanced in Jammu and Kashmir. Today, Jammu and Kashmir is touching new heights of development," Adityanath said.