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On November 16, 2017, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath claimed that the law and order situation had improved in the state, and not a single riot had taken place during the eight months of his government.

"When we came to power, hooliganism was at its peak and there was not a day when riots did not take place," Adityanath said. "The governments at the helm used to call over rioters and honour them but in these eight months not a single riot has taken place".

We fact-checked his claim and found it to be false.

As many as 60 incidents of communal riots were reported in Uttar Pradesh till May 2017, which killed 16 people and injured 151, according to data presented by the ministry of home affairs in the Parliament on August 8, 2017. (IndiaSpend had reported this on August 12, 2017).

Yogi Adityanath took oath as chief minister on March 19, 2017.

Source: Lok Sabha; *As of May 2017

Violent clashes were reported between Dalits and Thakurs in May 2017, which occurred again in July and September.

Many Dalit families in Muzaffarnagar's Bhupkheri village fled their homes in the face of violence and alleged threats by Thakurs and the police, Telegraph reported on September 9, 2017.

Between 2010 and 2015, communal violence in Muzaffarnagar rose five-fold, according to data sourced from the office of the director general of police for Uttar Pradesh, IndiaSpend reported on February 28, 2017.

In April 2017, in Saharanpur, BJP Member of Parliament Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma led a Ambedkar shobha yatra to mark Ambedkar Jayanti in communally sensitive parts of the town, which led to communal clashes, The Hindu reported on April 21, 2017.

(Saha is an MA Gender and Development graduate from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.)

Devanik Saha