Yogi hits back at Akhilesh over 'infiltrators' jibe at Uttarakhand Mahotsav in Lucknow

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday answered Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav over his remark that the biggest infiltrators in the state came from Uttarakhand, calling it the work of a “narrow and divisive” mind. He was speaking at the Uttarakhand Mahotsav-2026 in Lucknow.

The festival was held at the Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant Parvatiya Sanskritik Upvan on the Gomti riverfront. Adityanath, who was born in Pauri Garhwal in what is now Uttarakhand, did not name Akhilesh. The target of his words was not in doubt.

What Adityanath said

The Chief Minister said he had heard someone describe people from Uttarakhand as infiltrators. His reply began with history. Uttar Pradesh’s first Chief Minister, Govind Ballabh Pant, was born in Almora, in the hills that became a separate state in 2000.

He then used a line in Hindi that has since been widely shared. “अगर उत्तराखंड की बेटी न होती तो तुम आज सैफई में कहीं भैंस चरा रहे होते,” he said: without the daughter of Uttarakhand, you would be grazing buffaloes somewhere in Saifai. Reports read this as a reference to Dimple Yadav, Akhilesh’s wife and the Samajwadi Party MP, whose family has roots in Uttarakhand. Saifai is the Yadav family’s home village in Etawah district.

Adityanath turned the argument to the state’s contribution to the country. The Ganga, Yamuna, Saryu, Ramganga and Rapti all rise in Uttarakhand, he said, so an insult to its people was an insult to a shared cultural inheritance. He named General Bipin Rawat, the country’s first Chief of Defence Staff, his successor General Anil Chauhan and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval as sons of the hills, and said almost every family there has someone in the armed forces.

He also accused unnamed leaders of embracing “Bangladeshi and Pakistani infiltrators” while insulting the people of Devbhoomi, the name by which Uttarakhand is known. Calling that a divisive mindset, he told the organisers, the Uttarakhand Mahaparishad, that the festival would be held every year at the same venue.

How the row began

The exchange goes back to October 24, 2026, when Akhilesh Yadav spoke to reporters in Lucknow about infiltrators. He said they had entered the contracting business and, through investments, news channels. “And then, who are the biggest infiltrators in UP? Those from Uttarakhand,” he said, as quoted in our earlier report. Another account says he also called Adityanath an “ideological infiltrator” who should be sent back to Uttarakhand, and accused the BJP of presenting fabricated figures on infiltrators.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami replied the next day from Khatima. Dhami called it a grave insult on October 25, 2026. “Making such remarks about Uttarakhand or its people is a grave insult to them,” he said, and asked the Congress, the Samajwadi Party’s ally, to say whether it agreed. He recalled the police firings at Khatima, Mussoorie and Rampur Tiraha during the statehood agitation, when Akhilesh’s father Mulayam Singh Yadav was Chief Minister.

Adityanath’s speech is the first direct answer from the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister since then. The two men have traded charges all month. On November 8, 2026, we reported Akhilesh asking how the government knows that the 1.27 crore voters it calls missing are Hindus.

Why it matters

Both Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand go to the polls in 2027, and the BJP governs both. The reply lets Adityanath carry the Uttarakhand grievance into Uttar Pradesh, where the festival’s organisers, the Uttarakhand Mahaparishad, speak for people from the hills living in the state.

Neither the Samajwadi Party nor Akhilesh Yadav had responded to the Chief Minister’s speech in any report available by 2:30 pm IST on Thursday. The party has not said whether it stands by the original words or considers them taken out of context.

What happens next

The Congress has not answered Dhami’s question about its stand, and the Samajwadi Party has yet to say whether it stands by the original words. Adityanath told the Mahaparishad the festival would be held every year at the same Lucknow venue.