Akhilesh slams Modi for bullet train route selection - Hindustan Times
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Akhilesh slams Modi for bullet train route selection

Hindustan Times, Lucknow | By
Sep 15, 2017 02:55 PM IST

Criticising the Narendra Modi government for route selection of the first bullet train, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav said the project should have been launched on New Delhi-Kolkata route.

Criticising the Narendra Modi government for route selection of the first bullet train, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said the project should have been launched on New Delhi-Kolkata route.

Yadav said the Delhi-Kolkata would have been better as maximum population lived in the region.(HT Photo)
Yadav said the Delhi-Kolkata would have been better as maximum population lived in the region.(HT Photo)

Addressing a press conference around the time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe launched the bullet train project between Ahmedabad and Mumbai, Yadav said the Delhi-Kolkata would have been better as maximum population lived in the region.

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CORNERS YOGI GOVERNMENT ON LOAN WAIVER

On the Yogi government’s farm loan waiver scheme, Yadav said the debt of all the farmers should be written off.

“The Prime Minister had promised total loan waiver if BJP formed the government in UP. But after government formation, the CM (Yogi Adityanath) ran from pillar to post to get Centre’s help in loan waiver. Be it the Prime Minister, finance minister, Niti Aayog or Reserve Bank of India, he knocked all the doors but they turned him away,” Yadav said.

“The waiver given by using UP’s resources is a relief to farmers. A full loan waiver would have been a great help to them. Perhaps, the government is spending more on publicity, stage, ferrying of beneficiaries and food than on actual loan waiver. Farmers are anguished with the kind of amount they were getting,” he said.

“During UP assembly polls, the BJP leaders attacked the Samajwadi Party by saying only Saifai (the ancestral village of Akhilesh Yadav) saw development. Now, after launching bullet train from Ahmedabad, they will stop taking the name of Saifai,” he said.

“They are starting development from the place (Ahmedabad) as the PM is related to it. We too had a relationship with Saifai and launched many schemes there,” Yadav added.

Taking a dig at the central government, he said as the bullet train would move ahead, unemployment would end on the route.

“The next bullet train should start from Delhi to Kolkata via Lucknow, Varanasi, and Patna, so that unemployment ends there too,” he said, adding, “Just by putting up a curtain, the country’s problems and issues cannot be hidden behind it.”

BACKS RAHUL GANDHI’S DYNASTY COMMENT

Supporting Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s speech at University of California, Berkeley, Yadav said the BJP was much worried about ‘parivarvad’.

“Rahul is our associate, our friend. Whatever he said was in national and UP’s political perspective. It exists in the US too. A President’s son became a President. A President’s wife also wanted to become a President. There are many examples in various democracies of the world,” he said.

GOMTI RIVER FRONT

On Gomti River Front project, he said people would get to know about the investigations but it would have been better if the BJP government continued with the development of the river front.

“I can easily claim that our project is better than Sabarmati riverfront in Gujarat,” he said.

On the allegations of corruption in project, he invoked the recent statement of deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya where he reportedly hinted contractors to be rational in taking kickbacks.

“He asked the contractors to eat away a pinch of salt in dal (lentil soup),” Yadav said.

He said had the BJP government followed Gomti’s example, it would have cleaned Hindon, Kalu and Yamuna river. “The Ganga would have been automatically cleaned,” he said.

LOK SABHA BYPOLL: REFUSES TO REVEAL SP CANDIDATES FOR

Yadav refused to say anything on SP candidates for Lok Sabha by-polls but hinted that young candidates might contest the seats. “We will take the help of the youth and ask them to come forward,” he said.

BOAT TRAGEDY

Expressing grief over the loss of lives in Baghpat boat tragedy, Yadav said the government should help the families of victims.

ON HINDI DIWAS

The SP chief released the books of two Hindi poets Deen Mohammed Deen and Omvir Singh Tomar on the occasion of Hindi Diwas.

“There will be very few countries where Hindi-speaking people are not living. There will be few countries where kavi sammelan and mushairas are not organised. The popularity of Hindi has increased,” he said.

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