All demonetisation did was change the colour of notes: Akhilesh Yadav

VARANASI: Accusing the BJP-led central government of taking wrong decisions such as demonetisation and the hasty GST rollout, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday claimed that its economic policies would result in further "squeezing the employment opportunities" in the country.

Stating that the note ban decision was taken by the Centre to curb corruption, but all the higher-denomination currency notes were exchanged, he sarcastically said, "They say demonetisation will curb black money and corruption. All it did was change the color of notes. The government should carry out another demonetisation drive to eradicate corruption."



Addressing the "Samrat Prithviraj Chauhan Swabhimaan Rally", organised by the lesser known Janwadi Party (Socialist) here, Yadav, who was the chief guest at the event, said the economic policies of the BJP-led NDA government would further squeeze the employment opportunities in the country.

Without taking Prime Minister Narendra Modi's name, he said, "The BJP wants people to sell pakoda and chai. It is really sad that there are no jobs while every year, a large number of fresh graduates are coming out of the colleges."

Stating that the NDA government did not honour its promise of providing jobs to the youth or waving farm loans, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister asked the crowd, "Did you get Rs 15 lakh (in your bank accounts)?"

"The BJP had promised to give you Rs 15 lakh each, but it did not fulfil it. Today, I am also making this promise to you of giving double the amount if we form the government.

"We will give you Rs 30 lakh, but don't ask me about it later if you haven't asked the BJP about the Rs 15 lakh," he said.

Taking a dig at the Centre over its Aadhaar-linkage drive, the SP chief said we would soon see cows getting linked to the unique identification number.

"Their (BJP's) politics only revolves around gai (cow), gobar (dung) and bachda (calf)," he added.

Mounting an attack on the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh over the law-and-order situation in the state, Yadav sarcastically said, "There is a new CM...whenever he claims to improve the law-and-order situation, we get to hear that a robbery has occurred somewhere."

The Samajwadi Party (SP) chief also promised to erect a statue of Prithviraj Chauhan in Kannauj, while narrating the epic love story of the Rajput king and Sanyogita, the daughter of Jayachand, the king of Kannauj who had betrayed Chauhan.