Yogi sets tone, tenor for BJP’s ‘Mission UP’

Setting the tone and tenor to achieve the target of winning 73-plus seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath questioned the opposition on the Dalit issue and blamed the Samajwadi Party for trying to siphon off Rs 3,500 crore through Purvanchal expressway.

“The next year will witness two Kumbh melas – one, the political Kumbh when people will vote to elect the next Prime Minister and, second, when lakhs of people will take part in the religious festival at Sangam in Prayag. The winner of the political Kumbh mela will be Narendra Modi who is bound to sweep the election,” Yogi said while addressing the inaugural session of the Bharatiya Janata Party state working committee meeting here on Saturday.

Hitting out at the opposition on their hue and cry over Dalits atrocities, Yogi said the opposition parties blamed the BJP over Dalit issue but they failed to answer why there was no reservation in the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and why the previous governments during the past 65 years did not ensure welfare of the Dalits in the country. Yogi spoke in detail about the works done by the government for the community.

The CM said that the Samajwadi Party government awarded the contract of Purvanchal expressway for Rs 15,215 crore even when the government had not acquired land but the BJP government awarded the contract at a price of Rs 11,800 crore with more advanced specifications.

“The move of the SP government proves that they wanted to earn Rs 3,500 crore as a kickback through this project,” he alleged.

Announcing that an investment proposal of around Rs 5,000 crore had been received during the meeting at Aligarh early in the day in presence of Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the CM said that UP had turned into a favourite investment destination of the country.

“We have already performed groundbreaking of over Rs 60,000 crore projects recently and more would be done in the coming months,” he said, adding that improvement in law and order had made the state a good place for investments for the industrialists.

Giving a pep talk to the party working committee members, the CM made it clear that there was no alternative to hard work. He said that reaching every booth and educating the voters about the policies and programme of the Centre and state government could give the party an upper hand in the coming Lok Sabha election.

“The BJP has never worked for appeasement and has followed the ideology of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas,” he said.

Earlier, BJP state president Mahendra Nath Pandey in his presidential address said that the target before the party workers in the state should be to win all the 80 Lok Sabha seats to create a new history.

“The victory of the NDA candidate in the Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman’s election shows that nothing is impossible if done with good intentions,” he said.

In his 16-page written speech , Pandey alleged that the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party had ganged up in UP because the BJP government had initiated probe against the corruption during their regimes.

“The BJP government in the state has done a lot in a short period but more is required which will be done in the coming days,” he said while lauding Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for his leadership qualities and able administration.

The BJP working committee will end on Sunday noon in the presence of party president Amit Shah.