Lucknow, Apr 17 (UNI) Samajwadi Party (SP) President Akhilesh Yadav on Friday said that establishing the rule of social justice and eliminating economic inequality are big challenges in the country at present, and these challenges will be resolved when his government comes to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2027.
In a programme here, Akhilesh claimed that the next government in the state will be of socialists who will move forward on the path of social justice. “The Constitution given to the country by Baba Saheb Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar has written in its preamble that we have to make a secular, socialist, and democratic country. Socialism is in the preamble of the constitution made by Baba Saheb,” he said.
He said, “Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) has given us the socialist ideology and socialist movement as a legacy. Netaji brought the socialist movement to this stage, now it is the responsibility of the youth to take it forward for several hundred years.”
The SP chief said that the Samajwadi government has many big achievements from 2012 to 2017. “The work of preparing the infrastructure of the state and putting it on the path of development was done. Today the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is falsely promoting the expressway. The Chief Minister does not understand what an expressway is. He calls any four-lane road or any other road an expressway,” he said.
He said that the Samajwadi government built the Agra-Lucknow Expressway when even the standards of the Indian Road Congress were not fixed. “The SP government built a 323-km expressway in a record 23 months. The Agra-Lucknow Expressway is a 6-lane expressway. It can be made into an eight-lane expressway. This is the first expressway on which an airstrip was built to land the army’s fighter planes,” he said.
Akhilesh said, “I have said many times that America built roads and roads built America. If the speed doubles, the economy will triple. Travelling on the expressways being built by the BJP government will cause stomach pain. The Prime Minister inaugurated a Bundelkhand expressway. Its maintenance is still going on. The BJP government did not advance the Purvanchal expressway even an inch. If it had been connected to Ballia beyond Ghazipur, it would have connected to Bihar, and UP would have got the world’s largest expressway.”
He said that his government gave metros in Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra, Noida, and Greater Noida. “This government did not give any metro. Metro work was not allowed to progress in Lucknow. In the Samajwadi government, we also gave the metro to Varanasi, but the CM did not allow the metro to be built in the Prime Minister’s area in Varanasi. He could not even build a metro in his home district Gorakhpur,” he said.
On the Rana Sanga controversy, the SP chief said that history that cannot show the right direction, which creates a rift in society, should be allowed to remain history only. “We have told the party leaders not to make any religious comments. Do not say anything that creates negativity. The goal of the BJP is to divert attention from issues like rising inflation, unemployment, corruption, and problems of farmers,” he said.
He alleged that minorities are being attacked under the BJP government. “Now attacks have started on the Jain community as well. Their lands are also being encroached. Wherever the BJP sees land, it starts encroaching on it. The BJP changes names for political gains but stops the work. The BJP is against development,” he said.