The BJP has been highlighting the improved law and order situation, absence of riots and speedier disbursal of dues to sugarcane farmers. This is also the region where the 'Taliban' discourse has run the sharpest. In Saharanpur's Deoband, that houses the Darul-uloom Deoband seminary, an anti-terrorism squad unit was announced by the government, interestingly on the day the Taliban took over Afghanistan last year.