Nagpur (PTI): Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh on Friday said that the people of Maharashtra will defeat the language of hate used by the BJP in the run-up to the state assembly elections.

Singh is in Nagpur to campaign for Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) candidates.

Talking to reporters at Nagpur airport, the AAP leader claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi meted out a step-motherly treatment to Maharashtra by shifting investments worth Rs 2 lakh crore from the state to neighbouring Gujarat, and said this was a big issue on people's minds.

"The people of Maharashtra will defeat the language of hate being used (by the BJP) in the elections here," he said and expressed confidence that the MVA will win the polls with a huge majority.

The Aam Aadmi Party is a member of the opposition INDIA bloc.

Giving a fresh spin on the saffron party's slogan, "batenge toh katenge", Singh said, "Na batiye, na katiye, milke BJP ko rapatiye (don't get divided, don't perish, together ensure the BJP's fall)."

A few BJP leaders have been using the slogan "batenge toh katenge" (we will perish if we are divided) in campaigns for the November 20 state elections, inviting criticism from opposition parties.

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Pratapgarh (UP) (PTI): Four people were booked here for the abduction and assault of a man who they allegedly tied to a tree and beat up, police said on Wednesday.

The incident, a video of which has gone viral, took place on Tuesday afternoon under the Kunda police station limits.

The FIR was registered on Wednesday evening based on a complaint from the victim's father.

According to Keshav Prasad Yadav, a resident of Mauli village, some people called his 18-year-old son Nikhil Yadav on the phone and asked him to come out of his house around 2.30 pm on Tuesday.

As he reached outside the village as instructed, the accused allegedly forced him into a car and took him towards the Tinpedwa forest area, where they tied him to a tree and assaulted, the complainant said.

The attackers also recorded a video of the incident and circulated it on social media. The purported video shows the men thrashing Nikhil one after another, while one of them is assumed to have recorded the act.

Kunda Station House Officer Manoj Pandey confirmed the incident and said efforts are underway to identify and arrest all the accused.

Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has shared the video on social media, describing the incident as reflective of a "dominant mindset" against the PDA (Pichda or Backward, Dalit, and Alpasankhyak or Minority), and demanded strict action against the accused.