Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath hosted his Gujarat counterpart for a meeting on Monday before they addressed a unity gathering amid claims that over four lakh migrants from the heartland had been forced to flee a violent backlash in the western state.

The UP-Gujarat Ekta Samwad (unity dialogue) in Lucknow came months ahead of the 2019 parliamentary elections in what appeared to be an attempt by the two BJP-ruled governments to minimise the potential impact of the violence.

“Be it the people of UP or Gujarat, we all are children of mother India. It is the Gujarat of (Mahatma) Gandhi, (Sardar Vallabhbhai) Patel and (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi,” Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani said. “The people of north India are like sugar in milk in Gujarat. The hard work of the people of UP and Bihar is behind the development of Gujarat.”

The Gujarat leader said he was in Lucknow to invite Adityanath to attend the unveiling of the “Statue of Unity”, a monument dedicated to Sardar Patel that Modi would inaugurate on October 31, the birth anniversary of independent India’s first home minister.

Adityanath said a guesthouse would be built in Vadodara near the statue for tourists from Uttar Pradesh.

Monday’s meeting came in the wake of an exodus of migrants from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar after local mobs began targeting non-Gujarati people following the rape of a 14-month-old girl, allegedly by a 19-year-old from Bihar.

Entire families who took the first possible transport out of Gujarat recounted how some were roughed up and others told to just pack up and leave.

According to an estimate of the Uttar Pradesh labour department, over five lakh people migrate to Gujarat every year for better opportunities. The number includes over two lakh from Varanasi, Modi’s parliamentary constituency, and its surrounding districts of Jaunpur, Chandauli and Ballia.

The migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar generally return to their villages during the kharif season in June before going back in October.

The UP-Bihar Ekta Manch, a Varanasi-based outfit, claims that four lakh labourers have fled Gujarat since the violence erupted late last month.

Migrants from Varanasi, who had escaped from Gujarat and somehow reached home, have been organising protests against Modi and the BJP almost every day. Rupani’s meeting with Adityanath came in this backdrop.

Opposition parties, particularly the Congress, have seized on the violence, saying the attacks had proved “Modi’s hatred for north Indians and he should be forced to return to Gujarat”.

Modi had won from both Vadodara and Varanasi in 2014 but retained the Uttar Pradesh seat.

Apprehensive of protests against Rupani, the Uttar Pradesh government had deployed tight security at Adityanath’s official residence, where the two chief ministers met, and at Indira Gandhi Sansthan, where they addressed the gathering and later held a media conference.

Congress activists staged protests, releasing black balloons into the air and chanting “Rupani go back”.

Earlier, on Sunday evening, a dozen Congress workers were detained for stopping Rupani’s convoy and showing him black flags before being released late in the night.