Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on April 30 said a caste-based census alone can ensure the development of every section of society, while alleging that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had insulted the backward classes, Dalits, Scheduled Tribes (ST) and minorities.
“We Samajwadis (socialists) demanded a caste census, so that everyone gets rights and respect in proportion to their population, but when it comes to caste census, the saffron party goes completely freezes,” Mr. Yadav said at a public meeting in Gorakhpur, the home turf of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Mr. Yadav was campaigning in support of the SP’s mayoral candidate Kajal Nishad.
Describing Mr. Adityanath as a weak Chief Minister, Mr. Yadav said said no one could be a weaker CM than the one who could not appoint a Director-General of Police (DGP) in the State. The State has not had a full-time DGP for nearly a year now.
“The BJP creates a divide between Hindus and Muslims. If the Chief Minister had not withdrawn cases lodged against him, then it would have been known how long the list of cases against him is,” he added.
Mr. Yadav also focused on reaching out to the numerically significant Nishad community, saying that it was the SP that first sent a member from the community to the Lok Sabha from Gorakhpur in the 2018 bypolls. “Samajwadis (Socialists) sent a member from Nishad community to Parliament from Gorakhpur,” he said, asking voters to support Kajal Nishad in the mayoral elections.
The SP president attacked the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh for failing to provide basic facilities in cities, alleging that removal of garbage and cleaning of drains had not taken place in the past six years. “The BJP government takes all kinds of taxes from the public but does not give them any facility. They could not remove garbage, clean drains in the cities in past six years. In the name of Smart City, there has been only cheating and large-scale corruption,” he alleged.
Mr. Yadav said the Chief Minister had announced to run Metro services in Gorakhpur in 2017, but till date the Metro was nowhere to be seen.
He said the saffron party was destroying democracy and the Constitution. “The election of the Mayor is important. We appeal to you to make the Samajwadis win. The message for 2024 will go across the country with the defeat of BJP from Gorakhpur,” he said.
