Samajwadi Party leader and a minister in the erstwhile Akhilesh Yadav-led government, Azam Khan stoked fresh controversy today, saying that the central government should provide jobs to the majority community in order to curb incidents of riots in the country. “I appeal to the Prime Minister to provide jobs to the youth. I have been constantly demanding that the jobs be provided only to the youth of the majority community so that they get involved in work, get tired and shun arms. This will help bring an end to youth taking up flags and indulging in riots,” he said.

No stranger to controversy, the SP leader was attending a ‘pakoda’ protest staged by his party in Uttar Pradesh’s Rampur. In a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Azam Khan said that the country was moving towards anarchy and that youth heeding the advice of the PM was the only solution to this problem.

“The country is moving towards anarchy. The way to save the nation from this anarchy is that the youth work on the Prime Minister’s advice in large numbers and sell ‘pakodas’ to make money,” Khan said.

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Meanwhile, another SP leader and Rajya Sabha member Naresh Agrawal slammed the government over the martyrdom of Indian Army jawans along the LoC. “HM kehte hain shahadat khali nahi jaegi, koi hamari taraf aankh nahi utha sakta, Defense Minister bhi bayan deti hain, par aankh toh roz uth rahi hai. (Home Minister says martyrdom will not go in vain, nobody can lay an eye on us. Defence Minister also issues a statement but it is happening every day.),” Agrawal told ANI.

Demanding that the country needed to take strong measures to deter the current situation, the SP leader said: “Agar aatankwadi ye haal kar rahe hain, Pakistani fauj aagai to kya halat hogi. (If terrorists have created such a situation for us, I wonder what will happen if the Pakistani army comes walking one day)?”