“The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) promised that the poor who wear hawai chappal (simple footwear) would be able to fly in hawai jahaaz (aeroplanes) but the government made diesel and petrol so expensive that now people are unable to even move their motorcycles,” Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav said on Saturday as he led a yatra from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s bastion Gorakhpur.
“What did you get, my poor brothers? The BJP people had shown you big dreams,” Mr. Yadav said at a gathering in Kushinagar, where his journey atop a specially-designed bus ended as part of his ongoing campaign in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Mr. Yadav accused the BJP of fuelling discrimination, “making castes fight”, and snatching the rights given to people by B.R. Ambedkar, in a bid to expand his social base ahead of the 2022 Assembly election.
Mr. Yadav tried to punch holes in the welfare schemes promoted by the BJP through the question of inflation. Along with a hardline Hindutva pitch, the BJP in the U.P. has been trying to woo voters through ration and welfare schemes, he said.
Mr. Yadav said that while the government had introduced cooking gas cylinders under the Ujjwala scheme, people were now finding it difficult to refill them due to high prices. Women were unable to refill the cylinders, said the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister referring to this segment.
He also said farmers had to stand in line for hours to purchase fertilizers.
The BJP picked the pockets of the poor and filled the coffers of industrialists, Mr. Yadav said.
Mr. Yadav also said that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had “made personal attacks on him and his father Mulayam Singh” because, when in power, he [Mr. Ahkilesh Yadav] had distributed laptops to youth, ambulance services to people, and Dial 100 emergency police services.
In Gorakhpur, Mr. Yadav said no other government had made so many false promises as he reminded farmers that the BJP had said their incomes would be doubled. “Your farms will be snatched,” Mr. Yadav said, warning farmers against the three new farm laws.