The Bharatiya Janata Party has criticised Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav for his alleged “racist” remarks against Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

On Saturday, Yadav said Sarma was the "Chinese version of Yogi", in reference to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath, after the Assam Assembly abolished the rule that allowed Muslim members to take a two-hour break to offer namaz on Fridays.

“In an attempt to gain cheap popularity…the chief minister of Assam deliberately keeps doing acts that harass Muslims,” said Yadav. “The people of BJP have made Muslim brothers a soft target to spread hatred, attract the attention of [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi-[Union Home Minister Amit] Shah and polarize the society.”

He added: “People of all religions, except RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh], have a hand in the independence of the country. Our Muslim brothers have made sacrifices in getting the country freedom and as long as we are here, no one can harm them.”

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindutva group, is the parent organisation of the BJP.

Speaking with ANI later, Bihar’s former deputy chief minister also said that while Adityanath was “using bulldozers”, the Assam chief minister was “stopping namaz”. “The country belongs to everyone,” said Yadav.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal leader was referring to civic authorities in Uttar Pradesh summarily demolishing purportedly illegal properties of those accused of crime, mostly Muslims.

There are no provisions in Indian law that allow for such punitive demolitions.

Following this, BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said in a social media post: “Tejashwi Yadav labels Assam CM Himanta Biswa as a ‘Chinese’ because he is an Assamese and from the North-East! (sic).”

Poonawalla said this reflected the “racist mentality” of the Opposition INDIA bloc.

“It seems Sam Pitroda has taken over mindspace of Tejaswi when he makes such racist comments,” said the BJP leader.

In May, Pitroda, the Indian Overseas Congress chief, said that India had survived for 75 years in “a very happy environment where people could live together, leaving aside a few fights here and there”.

“We could hold a country together as diverse as India, where people on the east look like Chinese, people on the West look like Arab, people on the North look like white and maybe people on the South look like Africans,” he said in an interview with The Statesman.

On the other hand, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh said it was “unfortunate that a political leader like him [Yadav] has resorted to calling Assam CM, Shri Himanta Biswa Sarma ji as ‘Chinese’ just because he is from the North East”.

“It appears that the INDI Alliance is made up of a bunch of ignorant racists who have no information about the history and geography of our country,” said Singh.

Sarma, meanwhile, defended the decision to abolish the namaz break and said: “Our work will not stop based on the comments of people”, reported ANI.