Opposition parties, including the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), on Friday criticised the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh over reported power shortages, calling for urgent steps to improve electricity supply across the state.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav accused the government of failing to expand power generation capacity and took aim at its handling of the electricity situation.
"Setting up new power plants was neither within your (BJP's) capability nor within the scope of your narrow thinking. At least you could have uttered '3x660 Supercritical Thermal Power Plant'; even hearing it would have given some relief to people suffering in the scorching heat," Yadav wrote in a post on X.
He alleged that under the BJP government in UP, "only the demand and price of electricity are increasing, not the supply".
"BJP rule has pushed Uttar Pradesh into a miserable condition," he said.
BSP chief Mayawati also raised concerns over inadequate power supply and frequent outages amid intense summer conditions.
In a post on X, she said complaints regarding low power supply and electricity cuts were widespread in a densely populated state like Uttar Pradesh during the peak summer season.
She said the situation had made life "extremely difficult", particularly for the poor, the middle class, farmers, small traders and other working people.
Mayawati said people were expressing anger in different forms, and the issue continued to receive widespread media attention.
She appealed to the government to take immediate steps to address the hardships and inconvenience people faced due to power-related problems.
She asked the government to improve the power supply situation by establishing new power plants and other necessary measures, saying such steps would be in the larger public interest.