By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The BJP has gone all guns blazing in Uttar Pradesh with its top three leaders — PM Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and party chief J P Nadda — leading the charge amid anticipation that the election dates may soon be announced.
With the Janvishwash Yatra going on full swing in which the Lok Sabha MPs are holding road shows in their constituencies, Modi is visiting the state at short intervals. On Tuesday, Modi was in Kanpur to inaugurate the Metro project, which is a showcase of development in the state.
Shah, who has taken the BJP poll management in his hands, held a rally in Hardoi and later reached Varanasi. Nadda, meanwhile, addressed a Janvishwas rally in the Samajwadi Party stronghold Badayun. Apart from the top three, scores of Union Ministers too have entered the turf, with specific tasks assigned by the party brass. It is also learnt that there will be no Union Cabinet meet this week, given the high voltage rollout of the campaign bandwagon in UP.
Ahead of the poll date announcement, the PM is likely to be on a spree of inaugural events. With Modi in the lead, the BJP is seemingly making a strong pitch for its development credentials to beat the anti-incumbency factor against the Yogi Adityanath government. The PM has already logged in double digit visits to inaugurate developmental projects, besides presiding the opening of the renovated Kashi Vishwanath corridor in Varanasi.
While the top campaigners have begun holding rallies, senior BJP leaders have also been reaching out to the caste constituencies consolidate the support base. With the SP also going full steam, the BJP is seemingly pressing the accelerator amid the indications that the Akhilesh Yadav-led party will strongly challenge the party in the elections.
Union Minister Anurag Thakur on Tuesday said the BJP will return to power in Uttar Pradesh with more than 300 seats on the back of a positive public mood due to action against “gundaraj”, “unprecedented” development and public welfare schemes under the Yogi Adityanath government.
Thakur, who was the chief guest at the first edition of the Kashi Film Festival here, said people migrated from Uttar Pradesh due to rampant “gundaraj and mafiaraj” in the state during the tenure of the previous Samajwadi Party (SP)government and now they are returning seeing the work of the Adityanath dispensation.
He alleged that the development work took a hit under the SP government as it was busy protecting goons.
Women in Uttar Pradesh can now step out of their houses in the dark and businessmen have developed confidence due to the Adityanath government’s action against “gundaraj and mafiaraj”, the information and broadcasting minister told reporters.
“We will return to power with more than 300 seats due to a positive public, we brought development to every nook and corner of the state even after Covid-induced problems in the last two years,” he said.
Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh are slated to take place early next year Responding to a question on the women-centric approach of the Congress for its Uttar Pradesh assembly poll campaign, Thakur said the Sonia Gandhi-led party had joined hands with those who inflicted atrocities against women in the last assembly elections.
“Won’t Priyanka Gandhi concede that the SP supported goons like Atiq Ahmed and Mukhtar Ansari?” he said.
On reports about resentment in the Brahmin community, Thakur said the BJP government at the Centre and in the state works on the principle of “sabka saath sabka vikas”.
He said that “4.5 lakh youths got employment in the government sector and 3 lakh got contractual basis without any differentiation on the basis of caste”.
Thakur said that despite the Covid pandemic, India has achieved a GDP growth rate of 8.5 per cent and it will be one of the fastest growing economies in the world by the end of the last quarter.
The Union minister, who is also the BJP’s Uttar Pradesh election co-incharge, said that in west Uttar Pradesh, his party will more seats than in the last elections.
“There are lakhs of people who got a pakka house, power connection, benefit under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, and free ration, the poor evaluate the benefit of even a rupee,” he said.
“Social welfare schemes and the improvement in the law and order situation are two other major factors which will bring the BJP back in power,” he said.
The minister added that the BJP will return to power in Uttarakhand as well.
Besides Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, assembly polls will be also held next year in Punjab, Goa and Manipur.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday took a veiled dig at the Samajwadi Party(SP) over the large cash seizure from a Kanpur-based perfume trader, saying the ‘Ittar'(perfume) of corruption that it had sprinkled all over Uttar Pradesh before 2017 is there for everyone to see.
As the cash seizure triggered a fresh political war of words ahead of the Assembly polls in the state, Home Minister Amit Shah also used this issue to allege that the SP’s lexicon starts with ‘Apraadh’ (crime), ‘Bhaai-Bhatijavaad’ (nepotism) and ‘Corruption’.
Modi also mockingly said this was the “achievement and reality” of the opposition party.
In multiple raids by the Income Tax department and the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs recently, around Rs 257 crore in cash, 25 kg of gold and 250 kg of silver were seized from Piyush Jain’s house in Kanpur as well as from his house and factory in Kannauj, according to an official.
A Kanpur court on Monday remanded Piyush Jain to 14-day judicial custody.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav categorically denied any links between his party and Jain and mockingly said the ruling BJP got “its own businessman” raided “by mistake”.
Modi also accused the political parties that ruled UP in the past of spreading crime, which ruined all the businesses in the most populous state of the country.
“Boxes filled with notes have stumbled out. I was thinking they will say that this was also done by us. The people of Kanpur understand business and trade well. Before 2017, the perfume of corruption that they had sprinkled all over Uttar Pradesh is there for everyone to see,” Modi said without taking any name.
The SP was in power from 2012 to 2017.
Modi was addressing a rally in Kanpur after inaugurating a metro rail project and the 356-km long Bina-Panki multi-product pipeline project.
“But now, they are sitting with their mouths shut. They are not coming forward to take credit for the mountain of currency notes seen by the entire country. This is their achievement and their reality.”
“The people of Uttar Pradesh are seeing and understanding everything and hence, they are with those who are working to take the state forward,” he added.
BJP leaders have been attacking the SP over Piyush Jain’s arrest, claiming that the perfume trader had links with Yadav’s party.
The SP, however, has been denying any link with Piyush Jain.
“By mistake, the BJP got its own businessman raided. Instead of SP leader Pushpraj Jain, it got Piyush Jain raided,” Yadav told reporters before the start of the “Samajwadi Rath Yatra” in Unnao.
Addressing a rally at Hardoi, Shah took a swipe at the SP over the Kanpur raids.
”The A, B, C, D of Samajwadi Party is itself all wrong where ‘A’ is for ‘Apraadh aur Aatank’ (crime and terrorism), ‘B’ is for ‘Bhaai-Bhatijaavaad’ (nepotism), ‘C’ for ‘Corruption’ aur ‘D’ means ‘Danga’ (riots).
“The Bharatiya Janata Party has wiped out this A, B, C, D,” the former BJP president said at the Jan Vishvas Yatra.
This prompted a sharp reaction from Akhilesh Yadav, who coined a similar Hindi acronym and claimed BJP supporters are now saying that it is time to leave the saffron party.
“Due to incidents in Hathras, Lakhimpur (Kheri), Gorakhpur, Agra, even the BJP supporters are standing against it, and are saying ABCD, which means ‘Ab BJP Chor Do’ (now leave the BJP),” the former chief minister said.
Hardoi has been a stronghold of the SP and the family of Naresh Chandra Agarwal, who joined the BJP in 2018.
“A few days ago, there were income tax raids. Why was (SP chief) Akhilesh having an upset stomach over raids, and he said that the raids were done with political malice,” Shah said.
“Can anyone tell me whose Rs 250 crore were found at the place of the person making Samajwadi Attar? Today, they (SP) are unable to give an answer,” Shah said.
While seeking to link Jain with the SP, BJP leaders have claimed he had launched the ‘Samajwadi Attar (perfume)’ with Yadav’s support recently.
But Yadav claimed that ‘Samajwadi Attar’ was launched by SP MLC Pushpraj Jain.
He also wondered that “when all the resources are with the BJP today, who else can have such a huge amount of cash” and claimed that the CDR (call detail record) of the businessman’s phone would reveal the names of several leaders of the saffron party, “who were in touch with him”.
The details of cash withdrawal from banks would bring out the truth, the SP president said.
Taking a swipe at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), he said, “Due to the mistake of Digital India, it got its own businessman raided.”
Stressing the importance of sound law and order, Modi said in his speech at the Kanpur rally that for the development of any state or improving its investment and industry scenario, the rule of law is the most important aspect.
“The previous government had spread the tree of mafiawad so much that all industry and businesses got ruined. Now, the Yogi Adityanath government has brought the rule of law back and so investment is increasing and criminals are going back to jails,” he said.
The “double-engine” government of the BJP is encouraging an industrial culture in Uttar Pradesh, the prime minister said, citing the projects already sanctioned for Kanpur as well as other schemes that will benefit the locals.
“Political parties with a policy of corruption and honouring bahubalis cannot develop Uttar Pradesh. Therefore, they have a problem with every move that strengthens the society. They also oppose moves that are aimed at empowering women, whether stern laws against triple talaq or bringing the age of marriage for women at par with men,” he said in an apparent dig at the SP.
Modi also said the opposition parties claim credit for the projects conceived and implemented by the current government.
Citing various projects like the Kanpur Metro and the Purvanchal Expressway, he claimed that the BJP government laid the foundation stones as well as inaugurated those.
Yadav has often attacked the Adityanath government for allegedly claiming credit for projects conceived by the SP government.
(With PTI Inputs)
