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The battle of credit-jacking for the construction of Purvanchal Expressway between the ruling BJP and Samajwadi Party has given the much-needed boost to the stature of former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav as the top opposition leader of UP.
The battle with the BJP and the ongoing ‘Vijay Rath Yatra’ has firmly positioned Akhikesh Yadav as the main challenger to the ruling BJP in UP, ensuring that the opposition campaign would be centred around his leadership.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav plans to fight the 2022 UP Assembly elections with the support of smaller Other Backward Classes (OBC)-based parties without forming a ‘grand alliance’.
A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Purvanchal Expressway on Tuesday, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav kicked off the fourth phase of the ‘Samajwadi Vijay Yatra’ from Ghazipur on Wednesday. The SP chief shared the stage with allies —Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar and Janwadi Party (Socialist) Sanjay Chauhan.
On Wednesday, a huge crowd gathered at the Zero Point of Purvanchal Expressway in Ghazipur to welcome the SP chief’s Rath Yatra which was earlier scheduled on November 16 but had to be rescheduled for Wednesday as the District Magistrate denied the permission for the Yatra to be taken out of the Expressway on Tuesday.
Addressing the public meeting at Ghazipur while launching the ‘Samajwadi Vijay Rath Yatra’ from Ghazipur to Lucknow on the Purvanchal Expressway, Akhilesh said that the SP would form the next government in the state with an absolute majority. He claimed that the BJP was set to be voted out by the electorate in the 2022 Assembly elections as people had made up their minds to give Samajwadi Party a chance to form the next government.
Akhilesh further said that Ghazipur is known as the land of heroes. “There is going to be a change of peace and happiness in the coming time. The SP government will come in 2022 and the BJP will be wiped out from this Ghazipur. Purvanchal Expressway which the BJP government has constructed is incomplete. Also the concept of laying this Expressway was conceived by the Samajwadi Party,” he said.
The SP chief said that this was the same BJP government, which had said that it would ensure that those who wear slippers could sit in an aeroplane. “But the way the prices of petrol and diesel have gone through the roof, car and motorcycle of our poor farmers will not be able to run. The government has increased taxes on everything, it could not give DAP to the farmers. Bulls and bulldozers are running in this state. Before the elections, the BJP had promised jobs to the youth, but till date it has not been able to provide employment to the unemployed youth,” he said.
The former UP CM said that people of every section have now made up their minds for a change in leadership in the state and it is reflected by the presence of colours like red, yellow, green, blue and rainbow were visible in this public meeting in Ghazipur. “People of one color like the BJP can never bring change. The colour of SP is one that takes everyone along,” he said.
Akhilesh will go up to Lucknow on the Purvanchal Expressway. Decked up with pictures of SP patriarch and former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, party MP from Rampur Azam Khan, SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav, state SP president Naresh Uttam Patel and embossed with the slogan ‘Bado Ka Hath Yuva Ka Sath’ (the older generation blesses the new) the bus will be ferrying the SP chief across the state during the Vijay Rath Yatra.