Akhilesh contests Modi’s claim over crime in UP, asks him to check data
LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claim about the crime situation in Uttar Pradesh, asking him to check data of the home department and other central agencies.
At an event after laying the stone of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh State University in Aligarh, PM Modi earlier in the day said UP was run by gangsters and mafia before 2017.
Uttar Pradesh had Akhilesh Yadav-led government from 2012 to 2017.
In a scathing attack on the BJP, Yadav said at a press conference at the SP state headquarters here that that it was good to set up a university but the party “runs the best training centre of telling lies”. He asked the BJP to pick “bulldozer” as its election symbol, referring to the alleged demolition of houses of some Ayodhya residents.
Yadav told reporters that the UP government was not working according to the law and warned officials yet again that his party was preparing a list of those who violated the law, stressing that they won’t be spared once his party’s government came to power. Yadav had issued similar warning in earlier press conferences as well.
Responding to the PM’s comment in Aligarh on law and order, Yadav said, “He should ask for the data of the home department or Dial 100. He should go through the NCRB report and also see which state has been served maximum notices by the National Human Rights Commission”.
Yadav said the PM should also ask the Uttar Pradesh CM who were the top 10 mafia in the state. “All are aware how the CM withdrew cases against himself”, he said.
He also accused the ruling party of failing to honour its own leaders, referring to the foundation laying of a university after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lucknow in 2019 and asked about its status.
He alleged that the government used the work of other governments to honour its own leaders and assured that if his party came to power, it would set up a university or college at Vajpayee’s native Bateshwar village in Agra .
“Even after over four years, this government is changing names and colours, claiming the work done by the SP government as its own. As they know that their government is on its way out, the language of its head has changed,” the SP chief said, apparently referring to CM Yogi’s “Abba Jaan” jibe in Kushinagar recently.
Countering claims of the state government that unauthorised buildings had been demolished, the former chief minister said there were many houses, especially very old ones that did not have layouts passed by the authorities, citing the example of the official residence of the CM in Lucknow.
He assured that once his party came to power, it would restore the dignity of those whose houses had been demolished, by building new ones for them.
Reacting to the SP chief’s statement, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said, “In that case, Akhilesh ji should keep AK 47 as his party’s election symbol.” The ‘AK-47’ response by Maurya is being seen as portraying the SP as a party of musclemen.