Eager to spread beyond the borders of Uttar Pradesh and shed the tag of a regional party UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav asked the party cadres to gear up for the 2017 assembly polls in Uttarakhand. Ever since the creation of the hill state was carved out from UP in November 2000, the SP is yet to open its account in Uttarakhand assembly. The SP had won the Haridwar lok Sabha seat in 2004 parliament elections.
``We are in the government in UP, but so far we have not succeeded spreading beyond this state. Samajwadi Party has done a lot for the development of UP. No other state government can match the performance of the UP government in terms of the innovative development and welfare schemes launched by the Samajwadi Party government. Now it’s time for us to focus our attention on Uttarakhand and strengthen the party in the hill state’’, said the CM adding `` if the SP wins some seat in Uttarakhand then it will help the party to spread in other neighbouring states’’.
Akhilesh Yadav made these observations while releasing a book ``Mulayam Singh Yadav Ka Uttarakahd ke Vikas Mein Yogdan’’, written by Vinod Barthwal, senior SP leader from Uttarakhand. The SP leader is the advisor in `UP reorganization coordination department. CM said `` many books have been written on the struggle for statehood by the hill people and contribution of MUlayam Singh Yadav, the book written by Vinod Barthwal has analysed the issue in perspective and context and gives detailed description of the contribution of Netaji in the formation of the hill state’’. He said Vinod barthwal is an old associate of Mulayam Singh and was actively involved in all agitations by the party in UP and Uttarakhand.
Akhilesh Yadav asked the party cadres to read the book by Vinod barthwal and also the literature about the socialism. `` You should be well versed with the ideology of the Samajwadi party and for that you read the literature about socialism and the history of the struggle waged by the party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. This will strengthen your ideological conviction and strengthen your resolve to take the battle to other states for strengthening the party’’. Said the CM.
Referring to the June 2013 natural calamity in Uttarakhand, CM said `` UP lead from the front and was the first state to come to the aid of people of Uttarakhand hit by flood caused by the cloud burst. The relief and rehabilitation agencies of the state were pressed into service to provide relief to the people marooned in the floods’’. Moreover Akhilesh Yadav said `` the Samajwadi Party government of UP, had accorded top priority to the settlement of all the pending issues like the division of the resources and other related issues between the two states arising out of the creation of the hill state in year 2000’’.
Meanwhile Satyanaryan Sachan, state president of the SP, Uttarakhand said the party will take out a month long `Mulayam Sandesh yatra’ in the hill state in January from Haridwar. He said the people of the hill state are fed up with both the BJP and the Congress as over 300 scams have taken place during last 15 years rule of both the parties in the state.
The Uttarakhand SP leader reiterated his demand for projecting the Kannauj MP Dimple Yadav as the chief ministerial candidate of Uttarakhand in 2017 state assembly elections. Dimple is the native of Garhwal region of Uttarakhand. Sachan had made this demand in July last.
Responding to the demand of Sachan, Akhilesh Yadav had then said that ``How can he could take a call on her behalfIJ She is already a second term Member of lok Sabha from Kannauj. She was the guiding force behind the idea of launching the `Women helpline’ 1090 of the UP police and Samajwadi women Pension scheme and several other schemes launched by the Samajwadi party government for the empowerment of the women in the state’’. Akhilesh Yadav had also said that the national leadership of the party and the Central parliamentary board will take the final call on this issue’’.