Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav said that the farmers in Punjab should have allowed Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address the rally at Ferozpur as he would have only addressed the unoccupied chairs.
“I am arguing for the prime minister because had Narendra Modi addressed the Ferozpur rally, he would have told the farmers as to what was the reason for introducing the three black farm laws. The prime minister would have also revealed why the three agriculture related laws were repealed as the entire nation has waited with bated breath for the reason for the rollback of the three laws,” Akhilesh said while addressing a rally in Gonda on Friday.
“The farmers of Punjab should have at least allowed the prime minister to go up to the dais. From the dais the empty chairs would have welcomed him and it would have immensely pleased Modi ji. In Uttar Pradesh too, empty chairs welcome the prime minister in election rallies that he has addressed so far. I appeal to the farmers of Punjab to allow the prime minister to address rallies in Punjab,” the SP chief said.
Referring to an incident in Koderma town of Jharkhand, Akhilesh said, “I had experienced a similar situation while campaigning and very few people had assembled for my election meeting in Koderma. The poll meeting was scheduled from 11 am. I reached there as per schedule and the party leaders repeatedly asked me to wait for half an hour and after 90 minutes, I asked for the reason. It was then that I was told that very few people had assembled till then. I said low turnout was no issue and as I addressed the meeting, there were only 25 people in attendance.”
On Friday, Akhilesh also unveiled the statue of Samajwadi Party leader and former UP minister Pandit Singh, who succumbed to the novel coronavirus in April last year.
The SP chief was scheduled to take out Vijay Rath Yatra to Gonda on Friday and address whistle-stop meetings along the over 100 km route from Lucknow, but the Yatra was cancelled due to surge in COVID-19 cases. Akhilesh was scheduled to address election rallies at Gonda, Basti and Ayodhya from January 7 to 9.