100 community toilets painted saffron in UP's Etawah

KANPUR: Saffron seems to be fast turning out the colour of choice in BJP ruled Uttar Pradesh. After boundary walls of Secretariat annexe, Haj Committee office and a police station in Lucknow and clocktower in Gorakhpur were given a saffron hue, nearly 100 community toilets in Amritpur gram panchayat in Etawah, raised under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan sometime back, have been painted in this colour.

The villagers on Thursday defended the move. “It is our collective decision. We took consent of each and every villager on January 1 before getting the community toilets painted in saffron. One should not see it negatively,” village head of Amritpur, Ved Pal Singh, told TOI on Thursday. Singh added that of the 350 toilets in the gram panchayat, 100 have already been painted saffron and the remaining will be soon given this colour.

Akhilesh Yadav, meanwhile, has flayed the ‘saffronization’ move. “Batao bhagwa rang diya bathroom. Yeah to dharm ka apmaan kiya hai (See, now the toilets have been coloured in saffron. Such actions are an insult to the religion),” he said on Thursday.