LUCKNOW: Using the backdrop of the killing of mafia leader gangster-politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother Ashraf, U P Chief Minister, Adityanath Yogi has assured public rallies at Amroha and Shamli that gangsters and mafia were a thing of the past in Uttar Pradesh.
This has become part of the election strategy for the forthcoming BJP Urban Civic poll campaign.
While launching his rally from Saharanpur, the CM also addressed public rallies in which he wove the narrative around the law and order in the state. Muslim-dominated districts of western UP, Saharanpur, Amroha and Shamli will go to vote for urban local bodies in the first phase on May 4.
Besides convincing the electorate of a marked improvement in the state’s law and order scenario, the CM sought support for the BJP in the local body elections as the ‘triple engine’ government would give further impetus to the pace of development in the state.
In UP, Urban local body polls are planned in two phases—May 4 and May 11 and the results will be announced on May 13. A total of 14,684 seats in 760 urban local bodies with 17 mayoral seats, 199 municipality chairpersons and 545 Nagar Panchayats.
CM Yogi, who began his whirlwind campaign trail from Saharanpur, put the good governance of his government forward claiming that during the last six years, the state had remained peaceful with no communal conflagration and gangsters and criminals scurrying for life.
While addressing a public rally in Saharanpur, CM Yogi said that upcoming Urban Local Bodies elections were all about choosing a government that promised to equip youth with computers and skills to lead a respectable life instead of handing them over a “tamancha” (country-made pistol).
He added that UP was identified with ‘Kanwar Yatra’, festivals and ‘Mahotsavs’ (grand celebration), instead of instead of curfew, lawlessness and mafia. Yogi took a jibe at opposition saying those who used to clamp repeated sessions of curfew would also visit the people to seek their vote but people would have to be mindful while exercising their right to vote.