Akhilesh to launch poll campaign with cycle yatra on September 16

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav will la unch his campaign for the 2019 LS elections on September 16 with a 50-km cycle yatra from Kannauj which will be flagged off by the family of UP’s “demonetisation baby” Khazanchi.

The party had earlier announced the route and the plan for the ‘yatra’ but had not disclosed the date then. A pregnant woman, waiting to withdraw money from a bank during the demonetisation period, went into labour on the bank premises. The baby was named Khazanchi (treasurer) by the bank manager.

Akhilesh, who had opposed demonetisation, gave the newborn Rs 1 lakh from the chief minister’s fund.On the first anniversary of demonetisation on November 8 last year, Yadav again sent Rs 10,000 to the family and adopted the boy’s village Anantpurwa in Kanpur Dehat.

SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary said Akhilesh’s bicycle yatra would begin from Kannauj’s Thatiyamandi and conclude at the point where IAF fighter jets had landed on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway.

All the three elements of the cycle ride have political meaning –Akhilesh has been an MP thrice from Kannauj and is set to contest again from there, flagging off the rally by Khazanchi’s family will come as a tool to hit out at the BJP government, and the Agra-Lucknow Expressway is billed as one of the biggest development projects during Akhilesh’s regime. The cycle yatra will be flagged in at the Air Force airstrip of the expressway by the family of another boy who was born while his mother was travelling on the expressway. The family had named this boy ‘Akhilesh’.

“Last fortnight, the SP president had announced that a cycle yatra would be taken out every month. The first one in the series has now been announced,” said Chaudhary.He said Akhilesh wo uld hold programmes and a series of cycle yatras . Chaudhary said Akhilesh had triggered winds of change for 2012 assembly polls through cycle yatras.