With an eye on the significant Kurmi vote bank in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party on Tuesday organized a big show of community leaders to mark the 142 birth anniversary of Sardar Ballaabh Bhai Patel.
Perceived as a Yadav dominanted party by the rest of the OBCs, the SP promised comprehensive representation to the Kurmi community and mobilised all its leaders from Kurmi community. Former Union minister and Rajya Sabha member Beni Prasad Verma also shared the dais with party chief Akhilesh Yadav.
“Samajwadi Party will ensure that the Kurmi community is represented at all level –`Samaj, Sarkar and Sangthan‘, when the party is voted to power. This community has traditionally supported the party and we will ensure that it gets due representation in the party,’’ said Akhilesh Yadav addressing the meeting at the state SP office on Tuesday.
“The state chief of SP Naresh Uttam is also from Kurmi community and he suceeded me. Earlier he was nominated and now he is the duly elected state SP chief,’’ said Akhilesh.
Underlining the importance of Sardar Patel also known as `Iron man’, the SP chief said, “Earlier meeting on the birth anniversary of Sardar Patel were held at auditorium at the state SP office. This time the event is being held at the huge ground of the SP office and is packed to capacity. No other leader in India has ever been known as `Iron man’ as Sardar Patel played a stellar role in the unification of India post independence which was fragmented into over 500 princely states.’’ Targeting the BJP for its promise of constructing a statue of Sardar Patel in Gujarat, Akhilesh said, “During UP Assembly poll, the BJP created a hype about collecting iron / steel from each village for constructing Sardar Patel’s statue. We have not heard about the project since then and we also do not know whether the iron/ steel was rusting at some godown.’’
“I want to assure that after the return of Samajwadi party to power, we party will do something big and unprecedented in memory of Sardar Patel,’’ he said.
“The Union government should print pictures of Sardar Patel and other prominent leaders on currency notes as Reserve Bank of India is printing lots of currency notes these days,’’the SP chief said.
Urging people to be aware of BJP’s false promises, Akhilesh said, “I fail to understand as to how people believe BJP promises on their face value. First they promised to deposit Rs 15 lakh in each bank account, later demonetization of high currency notes to unearth black money, then farm loan waivers and lastly Goods and Services Tax. The BJP failed to deliver on all four issues and the GST ruined millions of traders and businesses. I apprehend that many banks will go bust with the twin impact of demonetization and GST.’’ Earlier in his address, Kurmi leader Beni Prasad Verma said that Akhilesh Yadav was ‘Prime Minister material for 2019’. “Chaudhary Charan Singh represented Sardar Patel in UP and Mulayam Singh Yadav succeeded him. We tried our best but he missed the bus to become the Prime Minister of India. The time has come to realize the unfulfilled dream by making Akhilesh Yadav the next PM of India,’’said Verma.