GRAND ALLIANCE WILL FAIL: YOGI
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath predicted that the proposed grand alliance of opposition parties will come a cropper in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Citing examples from the past, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday predicted that the proposed grand alliance of opposition parties, which are yet to reach an understanding on the leadership issue, will come a cropper in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
“I don’t think the constituents of the alliance, including the Congress, are ready to accept Congress president Rahul Gandhi as their leader,” Adityanath said in Lucknow at the inaugural session of the Shikhar Samagam, the annual summit of Hindi daily, Hindustan, a sister publication of the Hindustan Times.
He referred to short-lived alliances formed in the past — the Janata Party in the 1970s and the National Front in the late 1980s at the initiative of Jayaprakash Narayan and Vishwanath Pratap Singh, respectively.
“The Samajwadi Party is already talking about forming the grand alliance without the Congress. Even the Congress leaders are not ready to accept Rahul Gandhi as their leader. They don’t take him [Rahul Gandhi] seriously,” said the chief minister, wondering whether veterans like Sharad Pawar of the Nationalist Congress Party and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee would accept the Congress president as the leader.
“And what would be the agenda of the grand alliance?” he asked, predicting that people would keep the country’s interest in mind and re-elect the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the work it has done for the poor and the farmers.
Slamming opposition parties, the chief minister said, “Their only aim is to create political instability in the country so that they can fish in troubled waters.”
When asked about the proposed construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, Adityanath said he was optimistic.
“It is the work of Lord Rama and he will decide the dates for construction of the Ram temple. Whatever is destined will happen,” said the chief minister, who also spoke about the development projects undertaken by his government in Ayodhya and other religious cities. He claimed his government had changed the perception of Uttar Pradesh by working for its development.
On mob lynchings, Adityanath claimed such incidents were not taking place in Uttar Pradesh as the state government had banned illegal slaughter houses the day it took charge last year. Most victims of mob lynchings, which have left more than 30 people dead across the country since May, have been suspected cattle thieves and cattle smugglers, apart from alleged child lifters.
When such incidents in UP’s Dadri and Hapur were specifically pointed out to him, Adityanath said the Hapur incident was still being probed.
Asked about an increase in the number of police encounters in UP, Adityanath said ‘goondaraj’ (rule of thugs) prevailed and the morale of the police was low when his BJP government assumed power last year.
“Our government had then directed the police to act effectively, keeping in view the law and directives of judiciary and human rights commission etc,” he said.
On the alleged sexual exploitation of the inmates of a shelter home run by a non-government organisation (NGO) in UP’s Deoria , the chief minister said it cannot be compared with a scandal that surfaced in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur where the inmates had been subjected to sexual abuse.
“The NGO may be held guilty of financial bungling. For other charges (sexual exploitation) one should wait for the final report. We will take strict action once the final report is submitted to us,” said the Uttar Pradesh chief minister.
I don’t think the constituents of the (grand) alliance, including the Congress, are ready to accept Congress president Rahul Gandhi as their leader... the Samajwadi Party is already talking about forming the grand alliance without the Congress.