U.P. civic polls: SP promises Yoga centres in parks, property tax review
In view of the upcoming civic polls, the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Tuesday made a number of promises, including setting up of Yoga centres in the city’s main parks and reviewing property tax that has been imposed with retrospective effect in some urban local bodies
In view of the upcoming civic polls, the Samajwadi Party (SP) on Tuesday made a number of promises, including setting up of Yoga centres in the city’s main parks and reviewing property tax that has been imposed with retrospective effect in some urban local bodies.
The party has also promised to implement urban employment guarantee scheme on the pattern of MNREGA and setting up Samajwadi canteens and retail stores to provide ration and other necessary items on subsidised rates to the poor and labourers.
The SP made the promises in the appeal to the voters that party’s national president Akhilesh Yadav released at the party headquarters here. He spoke to media persons in the presence of party’s mayoral candidate for Lucknow Vandana Mishra here and exuded confidence of his party’s victory in the urban local body polls scheduled on May 4 and 11. The counting of votes is scheduled to take place May 13.
Yadav said the BJP has had its mayors in major municipal corporations that include Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra and Varanasi etc. He alleged the BJP’s urban local body leaders, however, indulged in corruption and this was the main reason that the party had to deny ticket to its candidate in Ayodhya and did not find any candidate in Shahjahanpur where the SP candidate joined the BJP and got the ticket.
He said the BJP government had failed to effectively deal with issues like traffic jams, garbage and expansion of Metro rail projects etc. Yadav said the BJP claimed itself to be a party with a difference. He said the BJP was, however, turning out to be a party from which the people had begun maintaining a distance.
He alleged that the BJP government failed to provide any facilities in the cities. He urged the people to vote out the BJP in the elections to urban local bodies to get facilities in urban areas of the state.
“Where are the funds earmarked for SMART cities?” he asked asserting that the BJP had been in power in the urban local bodies, state and the Centre and was still asking for votes in urban local bodies to get a triple engine government installed.
About the objectionable video song posted from the BJP’s official twitter handle, he said these were diversionary tactics. He said the BJP was resorting to such tactics to divert attention from the main issues like corruption, law and order, rising inflation and unemployment.
