A day after daring the Prime Minister to join him at a debate, Samjawadi Party president akhilesh Yadav threw another gauntlet to Narendra Modi asking him for a debate on demonetisation.
Addressing a series of poll meetings in Deoria and Gorakhpur on Monday, Yadav said, ``I challenge the PM to have a debate with me on demonetisation so that the people know the pros and cons of the policy and how this move of the Centre devastated the economy and ruined the lives of the millions of the poor people.‘’
The CM said, ``Instead of going for work to earn their wages, the poor people were forced to stand in queues before banks to withdraw or change old currency notes.’’
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi forced you to stand in queue for days together. It is election time and is a ripe time to give a befitting reply to the BJP by queuing up outside booths on polling day and vote against this party,’’ said Yadav.
Poking fun at the Prime Minister’s regular radio programme `man ki baat’, the SP president said, ``We had enough of ‘man ki baat’. If the BJP government at the Centre has done something for the poor people of UP then they should place it before them.’’
``The PM is in Mau today and he might share some of his achievements with the people there. The Centre asked us for the land for construction of All India Institute of Medical Sciences at Gorakhpur and the state government provided prime land in the city free of cost. The PM should at least tell the people as to when this supre-speciality hospital will be completed and opened for the people,’’ said Yadav.
listing his government’s achievements, the CM said, “We completed Metro Rail project in lucknow in two years and few other cities. Modi has been the CM of Gujarat for three terms, he should tell the people as to how many Metro projects were executed by him.‘’
Yadav also rubbished the PM’s dream project of running Bullet train between Ahmedabad and Mumbai. ``Three years of tenure of the Prime Minister is over and nothing has been heard about the Bullet train. The PM should tell us as to when he will get it started.”