LUCKNOW: With an eye on the big battle of 2024, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav commenced his party’s ‘Samajik Janjagran Yatra’ from Lakhimpur Kheri on Tuesday to raise the issues of caste census and social justice. The party has planned to take out the yatra in all 80 parliamentary constituencies across the state.
Akhilesh has been seeking a caste census for a long-time and intends to make it one of the major poll planks in 2024. While taking out the first yatra in Lakhimpur Kheri, the SP chief said his party would make people aware of the significance of a caste census without which social justice was not possible.
Akhilesh also launched a scathing attack on the state government over a number of issues.
Addressing party workers at an event, he took a swipe at the BJP for not appointing a full-time DGP saying: “This is the first time since Independence that the state got its third acting DGP in a row. Are the engines of Lucknow and Delhi colliding?”
Notably, Vijay Kumar, a 1988 batch IPS officer has been appointed as acting DGP of Uttar Pradesh. He replaced RK Vishwakarma and DS Chauhan, both of whom served as acting police chiefs of the state.
"With the appointment of acting police chiefs, the BJP leaders can do whatever they wish," the Samajwadi Party chief alleged.
Referring to the Lakhimpur Kehri violence in which four of the agitating farmers were crushed under the wheels of a convoy of cars in 2021, Yadav said, "BJP members have nothing to do with the law."
He also cited the wrestlers' protest demanding the arrest of BJP MP and outgoing Wrestling Federation of India chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh facing sexual harassment charges to say, "Our daughters had to sit on dharna for justice."
The Samajwadi Party president alleged that several encounters have taken place in the state under the BJP rule but the “police could not produce in courts the pistols used by them in the exchange of fire.”
Claiming that during the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, people's enthusiasm was in favour of his party, the SP chief said the results were contrary to people’s emotions.
“People were seen with the SP but the results were not in our favour. Had we managed booths, the results would have been different,” he said.
The Samajwadi party chief said that the 2024 Lok Sabha polls will be defining and decide the country’s future.
“It is the responsibility of the people of Uttar Pradesh to uproot them (BJP from power) in 2024. The new parliament building has been constructed. It may happen that you might not be able to vote in future. They might have learnt from Russia to continue ruling the country,” Yadav told the gathering of SP workers.