LUCKNOW: War of words intensified between UP CM Yogi Adityanath and his bête noir Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday over the seizure of unaccounted wealth to the tune of over Rs 280 crore belonging to perfume and Paan Masala trader Piyush Jain.
The officials of the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) had on Sunday raided Jain's house and factory in Kanpur and Kannauj and conducted searches for over 100 hours. The cash seizure is likely to become an issue in the upcoming UP Assembly polls.
Both the BJP and SP leaders are trading charges on each other over links with the tainted trader who is now on a 14-day judicial remand.
UP CM Yogi Adityanath took a jibe at the SP linking the trader to it. The CM claimed that the premises of the businessman raided are in Kanpur and Kannauj which are the stronghold of the Samajwadi Party. The businessman had also linked with SP leaders.
Addressing a public meeting in Sitapur on Monday, CM Yogi said: “Today money is coming out of the walls of the house. The rooms are filled with cash. They kept Goddess Lakshmi locked in walls. Now it is clearly understood why Bua (Mayawati) and Babua (Akhilesh Yadav) used to oppose demonetization.”
Earlier also, the CM had tweeted from his personal handle saying that the people were now understanding the discomfort of ‘babua’ (Akhilesh Yadav) with demonetization. Even in his speech in Praygraj on Sunday, the CM had referred to the cash seized as the money of the poor accumulated during the previous regimes.
The Union Minister of State Shobha Karandlaje, who is one of the sub-in-charges of UP polls, claimed on Monday in Balrampur that the cash was being recovered from the premises of Piyush Jain was kept to meet the election expenses of the SP chief. She claimed that Jain had close links with the SP and he was Akhilesh Yadav’s disciple.
Meanwhile, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav denied his party’s links with the perfume trader saying it was unbecoming of a chief minister to lie. He also took to twitter to post a BJP poster saying ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vishwas Hamesh Shikhar Par’ deriving the link between the ruling party and the pan masala brand ‘shikhar’ of Piyush Jain.
Akhilesh Yadav wrote: "Jhhoot ke phool ki mil gayee jad, BJP ke girte star ka ‘shikar’ (the root of the flower of lies has been found which shows the pinnacle of the falling standards of the BJP)."
SP leader Manish Jagan Agarwal tweeted that the seizure of cash and valuables from the premises of Shikhar Pan Masala and perfume manufacturer Piyush Jain is the telltale failure of demonetization affected in the BJP rule. “BJP and media are purposely defaming the SP by linking Piyush Jain with it,” wrote Agarwal.