SP chief leads cycle yatra
Calling it “parivartan yatra” or journey for change, the SP chief sought to galvanise the party workers. It mark birth anniv of SP veteran the late Janeshwar Mishra
Blowing the bugle for the 2022 UP assembly elections, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday led the party’s statewide “cycle yatra” in Lucknow, asserting that the SP could win 400 seats even though it had earlier said it would bag 350-plus seats.
Covering a distance of about six kilometres in two hours on a bicycle from the party state headquarters at Vikramaditya Marg to Janeshwar Mishra Park on a hot and humid day in Lucknow, he was accompanied by thousands of party workers.
The cycle yatra was also organised to mark the birth anniversary of veteran Samajwadi Party leader the late Janeshwar Mishra.
LUCKNOW: Blowing the bugle for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday led the party’s statewide “cycle yatra” here, asserting that the SP could win 400 seats even though it had earlier said it would bag 350-plus seats. The Uttar Pradesh assembly has a strength of 403 seats.
Covering a distance of about six kilometres in two hours on a bicycle from the party state headquarters at Vikramaditya Marg to Janeshwar Mishra Park on a hot and humid day in Lucknow, he was accompanied by thousands of party workers who rode along, wearing red caps and bearing the party flag.
Calling it “parivartan yatra” or journey for change, the SP chief sought to galvanise the party workers before the polls. The cycle yatra was also organised to mark the birth anniversary of veteran Samajwadi Party leader the late Janeshwar Mishra.
The party’s first full-fledged state-wide cycle campaign since 2019 Lok Sabha polls came about seven months before the state assembly election is due.
Bicycle is the SP’s election symbol.
“Till now, we were claiming that we will win the polls with 350 plus seats, but now people are so angry with the ruling BJP that they may make the party win 400 seats,” Yadav said at a press conference at the party headquarters shortly before the yatra.
“The BJP will not find candidates on all the seats. The BJP has harassed and oppressed Dalits, Brahmins, and Muslims in the state,” he alleged.
Claiming that the BJP had no work culture, he also said, “All that the BJP has been doing is inaugurating the Samajwadi Party government’s projects even today. They have no work of their own to showcase.”
Responding to an advertisement on the state government’s claim of UP being the top state in the country on many counts,
Yadav said: “The BJP government is number one in hiding its failures by putting up massive hoardings and advertisements. Under the BJP government, UP is number one in malnourished children, crime against women, lawlessness, unemployment, custodial deaths, sacrificing lives of teachers during the corona pandemic in panchayat elections.”
He also alleged, “The BJP government has made the UP number one in corona mismanagement, flowing of bodies in rivers, stealing of shrouds from the bodies and black marketing of medicines.”
Targeting the BJP for allegedly inducting criminals, Yadav said that as elections were nearing, the party had put its ideology on the back burner.
Taking another jibe at the ruling party, he said, “Recently, BJP leaders said that the government had fulfilled all the promises made in the manifesto. I say they haven’t even opened the manifesto after winning the elections. There is no word like manifesto in BJP, the word that they have is ‘MoneyFesto (festival of money)’, politics is business for them.”
The former chief minister said that his party was working towards giving people relief (from the BJP government).
The cycle yatra in Lucknow began from the SP office and passed through the Loreto crossing, Kalidas Marg crossing, Jiamau, 1090 crossing, Jaiprakash Narain Internation Centre, Sheroes Cafe, CMS crossing and Dayal Paradise crossing to reach the Janeshwar Mishra Park.
The SP recently concluded a series of meetings with the workers of over 300 of the 403 assembly constituencies.
During these meetings, the names of probable candidates for assembly segments were also discussed.
The party has made it clear that it will not have an electoral alliance with any of the major parties. However, it is open for alliance with smaller parties, Yadav had said in a recent interview.
In Kannauj, Akhilesh Yadav’s wife and former MP Dimple Yadav flagged of a cycle yatra.
Addressing party workers, Dimple Yadav said that the BJP government was “anti-development”.
“Since the BJP government was formed in the state all development works have stopped. A number of schemes that were started here (in Kannauj) were stopped and there are many projects for which the government did not release funds,” she said.
“To hide its failure, the government is lodging fake cases,” Dimple Yadav said, adding that people are suffering due to price rise.
Making light of the “cycle yatra”, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati said the SP was now remembering the late Janeshwar Mishra after the immense success of her party’s intellectual conferences.
This move by the SP is aimed at gaining cheap popularity, she alleged.
BJP MP Jagdambika Pal said that for the past over four years, Akhilesh Yadav never came out on the road on issues of public interest. But with approaching assembly elections, he has resorted to this “gimmick”, the MP alleged.