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SP may promise 10 lakh jobs to youths, free electricity to the poor
LUCKNOW The Samajwadi Party (SP) has started preparations to make its manifesto for the 2022 UP assembly elections and indicated that it may offer 10 lakh jobs to youths and free electricity up to 300 units for poor families
LUCKNOW The Samajwadi Party (SP) has started preparations to make its manifesto for the 2022 UP assembly elections and indicated that it may offer 10 lakh jobs to youths and free electricity up to 300 units for poor families.
The 10 lakh jobs idea seems to be inspired from Tejashvi Yadav and his Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) 2020 Bihar poll promise while the 300 units power idea is apparently drawn from Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) poll promises in Delhi, Punjab, and the July 11 declaration for the Uttarakhand assembly polls in 2022.
Though no top SP leader has made any declaration on the two promises, two hoardings outside the Samajwadi Party’s state headquarters in Lucknow say it clearly. The two hoardings have also become a sort of ‘selfie points’ for many SP workers who visit the party office.
The hoardings have a written message: ‘Soon after the Samajwadi Party forms a government in UP (2022), it’s very first cabinet meeting will make provision for 10 lakh jobs to the youth and up to 300 units of power free for the poor in entire UP.’
It is indicated that the hoardings were put up by a party member, Ayushi nee Neha Srivastava, from Sultanpur. Her picture and name are on the hoardings along with large pictures of SP national president Akhilesh Yadav, state president Naresh Uttam and Akhilesh’s wife and former Kannauj MP, Dimple Yadav.
The hoardings have a pride of place among at least a 100 SP hoardings on a barely half kilometer stretch on Vikramaditya Marg – the road that houses SP state headquarters, Akhilesh Yadav and SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav’s residences.
SP chief spokesperson and former UP minister, Rajendra Chaudhary, said: “The party is in the process of gathering suggestions for the manifesto. These promises are aspirations of people. People are making suggestions as they have high expectations from the SP as they want the party to come back to power. Things regarding the manifesto are far from final, but of course, there will certainly be promises like these.”
SP insiders said the party, apart from studying its own previous manifestos including the 2012 manifesto that had a revolutionary element in the form of free laptops and tablets for meritorious students, is scanning the RJD’s 2020 Bihar poll manifesto, AAP manifestos, and West Bengal chief minister and her Trinamool Congress’ (TMC) manifesto.
While Kejriwal and Mamata have repeatedly been winning elections in Delhi and West Bengal, Tejashvi Yadav and his RJD could not win elections, but performed well.
Akhilesh Yadav is banking on the “development agenda” and “SP government’s achievements” such as expressways, parks, Metro rail, free laptops, ambulances and farmers’ issues.
The Samajwadi Party had bagged 224 seats in 2012 elections and formed a majority government in UP. In 2017, it bagged only 47 of the 403 UP assembly seats and lost the elections to BJP.
