The Samajwadi Party announced Mayoral candidates for Varanasi and Mathura municipal corporations on Tuesday evening. Party president Akhilesh Yadav said in lucknow that Sadhna Gupta would contest for the Mayor’s post in Varanasi while Shyam Murari Balmiki will be the Mayoral candidate from Mathura-Vrindavan municipal corporation. With the announcement of the two Mayoral candidates, the Samajwadi Party has completed the process of selecting and announcing candidates for 16 Municipal Corporations, chairman of Nagar Palika Parishad and Nagar Panchyats and candidates for wards in the three-tier UlB poll.
Meanwhile, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday assailed the BJP for celebrating November 8 as `anti-black money day’. On November 8 last year at 8 pm, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1, 000 would cease to be legal tenders from the midnight. Akhilesh said that the `anti-black money day’ is an anti-people move and it mocks at the pain, sufferings and huge losses suffered by the masses particularly those from unorganized sectors of the economy. The SP chief said that the decision of NDA government to scrap high value notes ended in a disaster and to hide the failure of its policy, the government at the Centre was indulging in gimmicks to divert public attention. Akhilesh said that demonetization of high value currency notes was a `highly arbitrary move’ by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said that the decision was taken by the PM without consulting any party and even his own cabinet colleagues were unaware of the `highly disastrous’ decision.