E-Paper
Akhilesh Yadav to begin 'Vijay Yatra' today, BJP slams his air conditioned 'rath'
Akhilesh Yadav will travel in a Mercedes bus, which has been turned into a 'rath' having his posters displayed on one side and that of party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on the other.
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav will commence a 'Samajwadi Vijay Yatra' today from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, where assembly elections are due next year. "The 'Samajwadi Vijay Yatra' aims to make people aware about the corrupt, autocratic and suppressive policies of the BJP government and to establish real democracy," the party said in a statement ahead of the yatra. The programme is an effort by the SP to galvanise support ahead of state polls.
Yadav will travel in a Mercedes bus, which has been turned into a 'rath' having his posters displayed on one side and that of party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on the other. The bus will also carry a picture of party leader Mohammad Azam Khan, according to SP.
A day before the yatra, the party released a 17-second video in which Akhilesh Yadav is seen talking to his father Mulayam Singh Yadav and touching his feet to get blessings.
The Samajwadi Party said that the yatra will start from Kanpur and in the first two days - on October 12 and 13 - it will cover Kanpur Dehat, Jalaun and Hamirpur. "The yatra aims to provide justice to farmers, youths, dalits, the deprived, the backward, minorities and all sections and rid the state of autocratic and suppressive government," party spokesperson Rajendra Chowdhury said, according to news agency PTI. According to Hindustan Times' sister publication Livehindustan, the yatra will go on for three months in various phases. In each phase, Yadav will address a public gathering where he will list failures of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, Livehindustan quoted some SP leaders as saying.
Meanwhile, the BJP has alleged that Akhilesh Yadav is "scared and nervous" to accept that the Uttar Pradesh government has been working for "a crime-free society, including the eradication of corruption, attachment of the properties of criminals and development of the state".
In a statement, BJP leader and Uttar Pradesh government spokesperson Sidharth Nath Singh said, "When chief minister Yogi Adityanath was running from one district to another to provide relief to the people during corona, the SP leader was busy tweeting from his air conditioned drawing room from where he will be going to land in his air conditioned luxurious 'rath' pretending to go to the people."
