Charting out the roadmap of state’s development, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said that Uttar Pradesh had made all-round development in the last two years only because the “Samajwadi Party does not believe in taking political advantage of communal skirmishes”.
“Uttar Pradesh has witnessed unparalleled development in the last two years. Progress has been made in all sectors. Be it agriculture, power or education, Uttar Pradesh has done exceedingly well. Not only this, the Government has extended social net to include poor, women, Muslims and students in welfare schemes. Because UP is the most populous state of the country, the impact is not that visible,” the Chief Minister said while speaking in favour of the Motion of Thanks to the Governor’s address in Vidhan Sabha on Wednesday.
In his almost hour-long address, Yadav touched all sectors and gave point-wise rebuttal to the Opposition charges of lack of development and lawlessness. He talked in detail about the industrial endeavour the Government had undertaken; he spoke about increased health facilities that the Government had extended to the people, including distribution of free medicines and free pathological tests in the state run hospitals; he elaborated on the four-lane road projects that the Government had undertaken; He spoke about the dairy projects which were launched on Tuesday and also the attempts of the state Government to tide over power crisis.
“We have been able to do so because the ‘samajwadis’ have a clean intention. We work for the development of the state and do not see politics in all developments, including communal strife. What happened in Muzaffarnagar was shameful. But the Government did its best to control the conflagration. It extended relief to the people at the earliest and shifted people from the camps to pucca houses. The NGOs, private agencies and even the NHRC appreciated our efforts. There are some parties who played politics on riots and criticised the Government for reasons best known to them,” he said.
In his no-nonsense address, the Chief Minister spoke from his heart. He defended bringing Amul to UP so that state-owned Parag could get a competition. “The bottom line is consumer,” he said and added: “With Mother Dairy and Amul opening their outlets in the state, it would generate employment for the local people and give a vocation to the farmers.”
“Our Government is opening new medical colleges and centres for para-medics. We are also planning to open a state university of international repute somewhere at Sidharthnagar on India-Nepal border. Our Government is also contemplating to open evening colleges,” he said.
Having a dig at Bahujan Samaj Party, Yadav said that Samajwadi Party was being blamed for changing names of the projects or institutes but the fact was that it was the BSP that changed the names of districts and institutes like KGMU.
“We acted as per the sentiments of the people and changed names of districts and KGMU,” he added. “Uttar Pradesh has suffered because of the wrong policies of the previous Government. In fact, the BSP regime pushed the state back by 15-20 years. We are making efforts to bring the state back on rails and have succeeded to a large extent,” he said. later, the Motion of Thanks was passed by voice vote.