Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Monday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of delaying the poll schedule by a month, thereby creating problems for political parties and the voters.
The SP chief said that the unusually long poll schedule spread over nearly three months would cause immense problems to the voters due to heat wave conditions as the temperature soars.
“The Bharatiya Janata Party forced the Election Commission to delay polls by a month so that they could inaugurate all their projects and schemes,” the SP chief said while addressing a series of poll meetings in Lakhimpur Kheri and Sitapur on Monday.
Hitting out at Modi and other BJP leaders for terming the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in UP as ‘mahamilavat’, Akhilesh asked what should the BJP be called as it had allied with 38 parties. “The SP-BSP-RLD alliance is for a long term as it is an alliance of hearts,” the SP chief said.
Dismissing the BJP’s claim that “the boundaries of the country were safe due to it”, Yadav charged the ruling party with playing politics with nation’s security. He said, “The truth is that the boundaries are safe due to our brave (army) jawans”.
The SP chief made thia remarks while addressing an election rally in Lakhimpur in support of SP candidate Purvi Verma from Kheri and BSP candidate Arshad Siddiqui from Dhaurahra.
The two Lok Sabha seats will go to polls on April 29 in the fourth phase of elections along with 11 other seats of Uttar Pradesh and 58 seats of eight other states.
Attacking the Prime Minister, the SP supremo said, “PM Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 pretending to be a ‘chaiwala’. Now after 5 years, he has become chowkidar. The people of Kheri should take away the ‘chowki’ of the chowkidar.”
Akhilesh Yadav attacked the Yogi Adityanath government for the problems caused to farmers by stray cattle and the financial hardship faced by cane farmers due to delay in payment of arrears by sugar mills.
“The BJP has failed to give the report card of its five-year rule at the Centre and two-year-rule in Uttar Pradesh. We don’t want a ‘chowkidar’ who cannot safeguard our money in banks which have been looted by industrialists,” Akhilesh said.
