A Bharatiya Janata Party legislator from Uttar Pradesh’s Anupshahr on Thursday wrote an open letter to former bureaucrats who had demanded Chief Minister Adityanath’s resignation over the mob violence that erupted in Bulandshahr district. Sanjay Sharma blamed them for only noticing the deaths of two people and termed their demand “politically motivated”, according to The Hindu.

“You are seeing deaths of only Sumit and a police officer but not the deaths of 21 cows,” ANI quoted Sharma as saying. On December 3, mob violence erupted in Bulandshahr district after an alleged cow slaughter incident came to light. Two people, including a police officer, died in the violence.

“Please understand that the people who killed the cows were the real culprits,” Sharma said in the letter, according to NDTV. “The actions of the mob stemmed from the killing of our gaumata.”

Sharma said the people of Uttar Pradesh would take a decision on removing the chief minister, whose government had an absolute majority. “Not some loonies like you who are challenging a constitutional institution and framework,” the letter said.

He told The Hindu that he penned the letter because he “felt sad” over the allegations made by the retired bureaucrats and accused them of trying to fulfil “political ambitions” and fomenting communal strife.

A group of former bureaucrats, including former National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon and former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, wrote the open letter seeking Adityanath’s resignation because of his “politics of hate”. The former bureaucrats accused Adityanath of acting like a “high priest of the agenda of bigotry and majoritarian supremacy” and criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on the matter.