LUCKNOW: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday lauded CM Yogi Adityanath for the development of the state and attributed it to the ‘double engine sarkar’ at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh.
“The Centre and UP governments are working together to develop the state. We have to fight together all the forces that are against development here,” PM Modi said.
The PM was addressing a huge gathering on Tuesday while laying the foundation stone of a state university named after Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh, the royal of Hathras, a freedom fighter, an educationist and a social reformer who had donated 90 acre of land for Aligarh Muslim University.
The Prime Minister also laid the stone for the development of Aligarh node of the Uttar Pradesh Defence Corridor.
With UP assembly elections just a few months away, Prime Minister Modi threw his weight behind Adityanath saying the state led the way in development campaigns and COVID management by topping the list of states by vaccinating around 8 crore people so far.
Talking about the defence corridor, the PM claimed that India was moving ahead to carve its identity as a global defence exporter soon, unlike earlier when the country was just an importer of defence products.
Drawing an analogy with the famous locks of Aligarh and the defence corridor, the PM said that the city was now contributing towards the protection of the country’s borders as well. PM Modi then announced Rs 9000 crore for the development of the BrahMos missile at the defence corridor’s Lucknow node.
Taking a swipe at the opposition, especially the Samajwadi Party, the Prime Minister said that people could not forget the scams and scandals that used to be the order of the day in UP before the BJP came to power in 2017. He expressed dismay that how the then SP government used to block the welfare schemes of the Centre despite repeated correspondence.
“The centre used to write letters after letters but the then state government would not pay heed to it and continued to hamper the implementation of central welfare schemes depriving the poor of benefits in the state,” said the PM.
He also pointed to “lawlessness” that used to prevail in the state before 2017. “Goons and mafia were running free in Uttar Pradesh, especially in western UP, where the daughters were so insecure and unsafe that they were not able to pursue their education regularly. Parents were scared to send girls to schools.
But with
Yogiji in power, criminals and mafias think twice before committing a crime,” PM Modi said.
The PM brought the issue of law and order into his discourse while talking about the investment that has come to the Aligarh node of the UP defence corridor. He said UP had become a potential destination for investment as the law and order atmosphere was congenial in the state under the BJP government.
“We have to save Uttar Pradesh from anti-development forces and take the state further on path of development,” exhorted the PM.
In fact, the Aligarh node of the UP defence corridor has attracted an investment of Rs 1245 crore. Around 74.75 hectares of land has been acquired and sold out to 19 defence product manufacturing firms to put their units there.
However, reacting to PM Modi’s jibe over lawlessness in UP before 2017, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said that the PM should be well abreast of data and statistics before levelling any charge. “He (The PM) should dial 100 to know the truth of Samajwadi party rule,” said the SP chief.
Akhilesh called the university in the name of Raja Mahendra Pratap as a mere sham and hypocrisy of the BJP as the Raja had defeated BJP stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Mathura in the 1957 Lok Sabha elections.
However, earlier, launching a veiled attack on Congress, PM Modi said that there had been no effort by earlier governments to make people aware of the contributions made by the likes of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh, Raja Suheldev in winning the freedom for the country. “The India of 21st century will rectify all the mistakes committed in the previous century and the establishment of a state university in the name of Raja Mahendra Pratap is a step in that direction,” said the PM.
“As we celebrate Azadi ka Amrut Mahotsav, honest efforts are being made to make the young generation aware of contributions of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh and others in our independence struggle,” Prime Minister Modi remarked, also highlighting that the late king allotted land for the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). “As a prime minister, I consider it my good fortune that I am laying the foundation stone of a university named after such a visionary,” PM Modi said.