Rebutting charges levelled against his government in the White Paper released by the Yogi Adityanath government, Samajwadi Party president and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav termed the compilation as a 'bundle of lies'.
``Yogi Adityanat had announced to bring out the White Paper in a month after forming the government. I am not aware of the reason but why did it take six months to bring it out. Only the state government can answer,“ said the SP president while speaking to media persons in lucknow on Wednesday.
"If I am asked to chant 'mantras' and perform Puja, then I won’t be able to do it. Same thing seems to be happening with Yogi Adityanath. He does not understood the business of governance,’’ said the SP chief.
The BJP's White Paper had accused the previous SP and BSP regimes of indulging in loot and plunder of public money for personal ends and creating a mess in the state.
But Akhilesh Yadav chose to dismiss all charges relating to various sectors of state’s economy and law and order. The SP chief however refused to comment on serious charges of corruption that his government awarded contract for liquor vends in the state to a particular contractor for the next financial year 2017-18 while his term ended in the last fiscal 2016-17.
Taking a jibe at Deputy CM and PWD minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, Yadav said, "The quantum of corruption to be done by PWD contractors should have also been included in the White Paper.’’ Maurya had recently asked PWD contractors to indulge in moderate corruption (daal mein namak ke tarah).
Claiming historic success achieved by his government in all sectors of state’s economy during his five-year term, Akhilesh Yadav said, "Its futile to accept anything positive and development of the state from the BJP as they are masters of rhetoric and theatrics in the run up to poll and people get swayed by that.’’
"Do not expect development from the BJP as just before the elections, they would inject 'some kind of opium' and the people would forget their woes and vote for them,’’ commented the SP chief.
"Top leaders of the BJP government are fighting in public. Deputy CM is claiming success in making roads pothole free while the CM has ordered a probe into alleged corruption in making roads free of potholes,’’ said Akhilesh.
He added, "Maurya comes from the OBCs and he remained backward as he tried to occupy a room on the fifth floor of CM's secretariat but Yogi foiled his attempt and his name plate was removed.‘’
Terming the farm loan waiver as cheating and a cruel joke with farmers, Akhilesh said, "Never before in the history of the country, farm loan amounting to a few paise were waived off by any state government. During the Assembly poll campaign, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised loan waaiver of all farmers along with free house and some money in their bank accounts. And what was delivered, is before you.’’
``Now even gullible farmers have realised that they were short-changed and taken for a ride by the BJP government. Yogi was so desperate to showcase loan waiver as an achievement that government officials issued certificates of loan waiver of 50 paisa to five rupees to farmers without verification,’’said the SP president.