Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of pursuing vendetta politics against opposition leaders across Uttar Pradesh and in other BJP-ruled states.
On Friday, Akhilesh embarked on a three-day visit to Bareilly and Rampur. In Rampur, the SP chief would mobilise support for party MP Mohammad Azam Khan and protest against victimisation of the party leader.
Akhilesh charged that UP Police had launched an extortion drive across the state ever since the amended Motor Vehicles Act came into force. He said that his party would launch an agitation against the police extortion.
The SP chief said that the penal provisions of the amended MV Act were draconian, anti-people and regressive and even BJP-ruled states had refused to implement them.
He said that the opposition of the new MV Act by BJP chief ministers was the beginning of protests against the over-centralisation of power in the hands of one leader in Delhi.
Akhilesh claimed that phenomenal hike in circulation of fake currency note had exposed the claims of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that demonetisation of high value currency notes had eliminated fake currency.
“The ten-fold increase in number of fake currency notes has spooked the claim of the BJP that demonetisation would help in curbing flow of fake currency notes,” he said.
On Friday, Akhilesh reached Bareilly and visited the bereaved family of former party MLA Siyaram Sagar, who passed away recently. The SP chief is scheduled to go to Rampur from Bareilly on Saturday. Earlier, his Rampur visit was scheduled on September 8 but it was cancelled in the wake of Muharram and Ganesh Utsav.
At Rampur, Akhilesh would put up at Humsafar resort owned by Mohammad Azam Khan even as authorities preferred the PWD guest house.
The former chief minister is expected to express solidarity with party MP from Rampur, Azam Khan, as 81 cases have been registered against him and his family members by the Rampur district administration for land grabbing, power theft, buffalo and goat stealing and other issues.