BJP president J P Nadda at a public meeting. (File/PTI) The BJP concluded its “Jan Vishwas Yatra” campaign on Monday, with party chief JP Nadda accusing the Samajwadi Party (SP) government of Akhilesh Yadav of misappropriating funds for various welfare schemes. The same money under the BJP government of Yogi Adityanath was directly reaching the accounts of beneficiaries, he claimed. The SP was in power from 2012 to 2017 before being unseated by the BJP.
Nadda hit out at the SP and other Opposition parties at public meetings organised in Lucknow and Basti to mark the conclusion of the “yatras” in the regions of Awadh, Gorakhpur, and Kashi. During the weekend, the party had wrapped up the campaign in three other regions.
At the meeting in Basti, the BJP president said, “The difference is now clear in UP. The money of the [various] schemes, now directly goes to the accounts of people. At the time of the Akhilesh Yadav government, money used to go for his [Akhilesh] consumption. The Akhilesh Yadav government had promised to give laptops to youths. For this, 15 lakh laptops were purchased but only 6.25 lakh were distributed. Where did the rest of the laptops go? The Yogi government has given one lakh laptops and smartphones to youths. One crore youths will be given laptops and smartphones in future.”
Nadda accused the Akhilesh government of being sympathetic to terrorists and criminals. “Akhilesh ji withdrew cases to save 15 terrorists. But the court did not allow it. And four of them were given death sentences, the rest life imprisonment later. Do you need a government that protects terrorists?” he asked, evoking an emphatic “no” from the crowd.
Nadda accused both the SP and BSP governments of the past of being indifferent to the plight of farmers, including those who cultivate sugarcane. “The Adityanath government alone paid a sum of Rs 1.4 lakh crore to sugarcane farmers while under Mayawati’s rule, 21 sugar mills were sold at throwaway prices and 18 were shut down,” he claimed.
Nadd added, “In the Akhilesh Yadav regime, 11 sugar mills were shut down while the Yogi government started three new sugar mills and brought up the number of running sugar mills to 54.”
Later in the afternoon, in his address to party supporters in Lucknow, the BJP chief said the six “yatras” that began on December 19 travelled through all 403 Assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh. None of the Opposition parties could dare hold such a campaign since people did not trust them, he claimed.
Nadda said the tenure of Akhilesh’s government was marked by misgovernance and terror. “Then there was a foul smell of corruption, but today there is a fragrance of honesty,” he told the gathering, adding, “Itra jitna bhi lagao, badbu khushbu me badal nahi sakti hai [Apply as much perfume as you want, but the foul odour is not going to change into fragrance.”
The BJP president claimed that the word “kabja [capture]” defined the SP, and added that it was an acronym in which “k” stood for kushasan (misgovernance), “a” for aatankwad (terrorism), “b” for bhrashtachar (corruption), “j” for jurm (crime), and “a” for andhkar (darkness).
Nadda told the gathering that he had heard Akhilesh say that Yogi Adityanath led to the “satyanaash [ruin]” of the state. “I will say he [Adityanath] has ruined his [Akhilesh’s] future,” he retorted.
In a veiled attack on Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra who is running a women-centric campaign, he said, “Main ladki hoon, main lad sakti hoon, main ladungi [I am a woman, I can fight, I will fight]. Who has stopped you from fighting and speaking for women? But your grandfather, father and mother did not provide toilets to 11 crore women for 70 years. Are you not ashamed? Modi ji has provided izzatghar [toilets] to 11 crore women.”
PM likely to address rally in Lucknow on Sunday
Sources in the BJP on Monday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was likely to address a grand “Jan Vishwas” rally here on January 9 as part of a formal ceremony to mark the end of the “Jan Vishwa Yatra” campaign that was launched on December 19 from Ambedkar Nagar, Mathura, Bijnor, Jhansi, Basti and Ghazipur with the aim of publicising the achievements of the Modi-led Union government and the Yogi Adityanath government in the state.
The saffron party said more than 10 lakh people, including at least seven party workers from each polling booth, were expected to attend the prime minister’s scheduled rally at the Ramabai Ambedkar Maidan.
Chief Minister Adityanath, all state Cabinet ministers, top leaders of the party (including those in charge of different regions), and Union ministers from Uttar Pradesh are expected to be present. A BJP leader said a virtual meeting was held on Sunday to discuss the preparations for the rally and assign responsibilities.
(With PTI inputs)
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
