Making a mockery of his announcement to contest elections in Uttar Pradesh, the Yogi Adityanath government hit hard at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, saying that he is a habitual liar and his inefficient administrative skills have been exposed during the COVID-19 crisis.
“The person failed to deliver when it was required the most. It is hard to believe how he turned out the hapless people of UP, Bihar and Jharkhand from Delhi during the trying times of coronavirus pandemic and now he wants to extend the so-called good governance of Delhi to Uttar Pradesh,” said UP minister and government spokesperson Sidharth Nath Singh here on Tuesday while addressing media persons.
“It was for the Yogi government to receive them (migrant workers), provide them free ration, give them sustenance allowance and get them tested for coronavirus infection for free,” he said.
The UP minister said that it was most surprising that the Delhi chief minister had something to comment on the UP government despite failing on the expectations of the people of Delhi on more than one occasion.
“UP has conducted more than two crore Covid tests against 72 lakh of Delhi. Notably, Delhi has a population of two crore while UP has a population of about 24 crore and the number of total cases in Delhi are 6.08 lakh and in UP, the figure is 5.66 lakh. And we are conducting over 1.75 lakh Covid tests daily,” Singh said.
He said the Delhi High Court had come down heavily on the Kejriwal government over its Covid management while on the contrary, the UP government has received accolades from the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the efficient management of COVID-19 .
“Look at the facilities, we have two AIIMS in UP and you are not able to even manage one. We have added 52 new medical colleges in the state in the past three-and-half years but what about your government?. Still, if you want to have more facts, we are open for a debate,” Singh said, challenging Kejriwal for an open debate.
Singh said that Kejriwal owed an apology to the people of Purvanchal whom he had insulted by saying that “the people from Purvanchal (UP and Bihar) come to Delhi on a ticket of Rs 500 and get treatment of Rs 5 lakh and this is the reason why people of Delhi do not get treatment”.
“It was the talk of the past. Now, Purvanchal has enough facilities to match the standard of your (Delhi) hospitals,’’ he said.
“Furthermore, what the Delhi government has done for the youth is for everyone to see,” he said, pointing out that the unemployment rate of Delhi was over 45 percent while UP had given employment to over four lakh youth in the past three-and-half years. In addition, over 1.5 crore youth have become self-reliant with the assistance of the state government,” the minister said.
“The Delhi government claims 1,024 primary schools. I would like to tell him that UP has 1.35 lakh primary schools and over 50,000 of them have been upgraded under the Kayakalp scheme,’’ he said.
Singh said the Yogi government had made payment to the cane farmers to the tune of Rs 1.12 lakh crore, more than the total budget of Delhi government.
“In this context, Kejriwal’s foray into UP is like ‘Mungerilal ke haseen sapne,” he added.