The Opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh have demanded a White Paper on the foreign trips of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his ministerial colleagues during the past three years. The Opposition parties have also asked the Samajwadi Party Government to table the White Paper in the state legislature during the Budget session starting from February 18. The demand for a White Paper came after an information by the state Government on a right to information (RTI) application stated that the UP Chief Minister had spent Rs 1,06,28,338 on one trip to US in 2013.
However, the trip was unsuccessful as the Chief Minister did not address the annual symposium of the Harvard University on successfully organising the Kumbh Mela at Allahabad following frisking of state minister Mohammad Azam Khan. The reply to the RTI application disclosed that the 12-member delegation, in which one person, Vijay Kumar Yadav, contributed his own expenses, spent Rs 52,50,000 for air fares and remaining Rs 52,78,338 for hotel and other expenses during the trip to US in April 2013. later, the visit was cut short by the UP delegation and even the Chief Minister, who was to address the annual symposium of Harvard University, skipped it in protest against the incident with Azam Khan.
UP Congress was the first to allege that public money was being ‘wasted’ as no investment had come to the state during these foreign visits. “The Chief Minister, his ministers and officials have wasted crores of rupees on foreign visits for attracting investments but not a single rupee has come the state’s way,” UP Congress media committee chairman Satyadev Tripathi said.
“The state Government should bring out a White Paper to tell how much money has been wasted on these visits and how much investment has come to the state,” Tripathi demanded. The Congress leader said the Chief Minister’s claims on massive investments coming to the state were misleading and all assurances of investment were an eyewash.
Bharatiya Janata Party’s state spokesperson Vijay Bahadur Pathak, in a statement here, also demanded a White Paper on the foreign visits of the Chief Minister and his ministerial colleague. “People of the state have the right to know how the Government is spending their money and what is the outcome of these foreign tours,” Pathak said. The BJP leader questioned the spending of Rs 1.06 crore on the US trip of the Chief Minister that did not yield any result and even the Chief Minister did not address the Harvard University symposium for the reason the visit was approved.