Ayodhya, Nov 14 (PTI) Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister YogiAdityanath kickstarted today the campaign for civic polls inthe state from the temple town of Ayodhya where he sought toconvince the electorate that a win for the BJP would ensureholistic development.
He alleged that public money meant for the developmentwas misused in previous regimes led by other parties.
"Among the seven sacred cities, Ayodhya is the first. Andit is for the first time that Ayodhya is readying for themayoral elections. Voting is going to take place in Ayodhya inthe first phase and I congratulate you that the first electionrally is also being held here," said the priest-turned-politician in a speech that ended with the shout of 'Jai ShriRam'.
Stressing on the importance of urban local bodieselections, he said that almost 30 per cent of the populationof Uttar Pradesh lived in the 653 urban local bodies of thestate. Even the remaining 70 per cent banks on the urban localbodies for many of their requirements.
Hence, we have to ensure the holistic development of theurban local bodies, he said.
"The funds coming from the Centre and those released bythe state government must be utilised for the welfare of thepublic...I have come here to appeal to you that if the BJPconstitutes the board (in urban local bodies), we can fulfilthe road map of holistic development that we have drawn forthe state," he said.
Lashing out at the previous state government, he saidthat in the last 15 years, "(public) money was misused,development of urban local bodies had come to grinding halt".
It is for this reason that we have come to you and makeyou aware about the facts, he said.
"There was no cleanliness during the previous government,as the contract for cleaning activities and undertakingcleanliness work, was issued by the concerned minister fromhis residence. If the contracts are distributed from Lucknow,it also attacks the independent nature of the urban localbodies," he alleged.
Adityanath said that Ayodhya now gets 24 hours powersupply. Earlier there was no electricity supply, and whenthere was, people did not know for how long it will be there,he said taking a dig at rivals.
"Ayodhya has given Diwali to the world, but Diwalidisappeared from Ayodhya...Hence, our entire government cameto Ayodhya to celebrate Diwali..We have already laidfoundation stones of projects in Ayodhya worth Rs 137 crores,and more will be brought, once the elections are over. Ayodhyawill get an international recognition," he said.
He said that people across the world consider Ayodhya asa city of temples but there should be cleanliness, drinkingwater facility, toilets, cleaning of ghats, aarti of riverSaryu and no throwing of garbage in the river etc.
We have come up with a roadmap, Adityanath said.
He also mentioned that Prime Minister Narendra Modiwanted to develop 13 cities of UP as smart cities, but theprevious (SP) government did not want to co-operate. It alsodid not show interest in the PM Awas Yojana, he claimed.
The previous state government had sent only 29,000proposals for the construction of houses, but in six months wehave worked to make available housing units to 1.61 lakh poorin urban areas of the state, he said.
"We are already working on making one urban body inevery district as Deendayal Upadhyay Nagar Nikaay (DeendayalUpadhyay urban body) - an ideal urban body, where all thefacilities can be made available. And for this we need apositivity oriented board...We need a BJP board, which canbring benefits to the people," Adityanath said.
He even urged sadhus in the gathering to ensure a win forthe BJP.
"Ayodhya's identity is associated with you, and youridentity is associated with Ayodhya. Please appeal the pulicto vote in large number, so that full majority boards underBJP's leadership can be formed in Ayodhya MunicipalCorporation," he said. PTI NAVADS.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.