LUCKNOW: With the UP election season switching to high gear, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stepped up his pitch, claiming to be a son of Uttar Pradesh’ by virtue of winning the right to represent Varanasi in Parliament.
“I was born in Gujarat but I am fortunate that UP has accepted me. I am UP’s adopted son and it is my Maai-Baap,” said the PM at public meetings at Hardoi and Barabanki Thursday. And at each speech he followed up the humble son routine with a dig at Akhilesh Yadav.
“I am not such a son who would shun his parents,” he said. Modi went on to assure the public that he would do everything for the development of farmers, poor, the deprived and the downtrodden, which the real son of UP (Akhilesh Yadav) has allegedly not been able to do during his five-year stint as chief minister.
Launching a blistering attack on the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party governments that have ruled UP in the past, the Prime Minister said that both parties indulged in loot and filled their own coffers while doing virtually nothing for the people.
Commenting on the poor law and order situation, the PM accused Akhilesh Yadav of turning every ‘police thana’ into a SP office where getting an FIR lodged was a difficult task for the common man. “Even a single word can’t be entered in the complaint register without permission of SP goons. If any officer dares to go against their wish, he faces the consequences,” stated Modi.
Describing the SP as a sinking ship that was rejected in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the PM cautioned Akhilesh about his alliance with Congress. “The followers of (Ram Manohar) Lohiaji, who opposed the policies of the Congress all his life, have embraced the very same party. I wonder, under what compulsions,” he asked.