‘Opposition’s barbs will drive investors away’

LUCKNOW: Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday said the opposition’s attempts to show the state in a poor light would turn away investors who were otherwise making deeper forays into Uttar Pradesh now.

“We have brought to Lucknow major companies like HCL that used to remain confined to Noida earlier. The Agra-Lucknow Expressway has made it possible. Investment will move further to east UP with the Lucknow-Ballia Expressway project. Investors and traders are now realising that we are working on the law and order situation,” the chief minister said in his reply to a debate on the budgets of the home and the general administration departments in the Vidhan Sabha here on Tuesday.

The chief minister, who targeted the BSP, the BJP and Congress alike, said he had presented five annual budgets and would present his sixth budget as well, indicating that the Samajwadi Party would win the 2017 assembly election in Uttar Pradesh. “I wish all the MLAs are returned (re-elected) and we work together for the people,” he said in a lighter vein.

Rebutting the observations of leader of opposition Swami Prasad Maurya and others on crime, he said, “We have acted firmly in every case.” Yadav listed the Samajwadi pension scheme and metro projects as his government’s achievements. “We are still withdrawing the fake cases that the BSP government had registered against its adversaries,” said the chief minister, asking the opposition leaders to have faith in officers and institutions. “We don’t put unnecessary pressure on them as was done during your (BSP) tenure when an officer, who had won a gold medal, had to go to jail.”

He said the same opposition leaders who targeted the police also requested that gunners be deployed for their (the leaders’) protection. Yadav said the leaders sometimes needed protection from the people and it was the police that saved them. “If I don’t have security with me, people may target me,” said Yadav. He also took a dig at the Congress, saying the party that played a key role in the freedom struggle was now engaging an agency to revive its fortunes. This was an obvious reference to the Congress having roped in poll strategist Prashant Kishor.

We are still withdrawing the fake cases that the BSP government had registered against its adversaries

AKHILESH YADAV, UP CM