Countless questions waiting for BJP in UP: Akhilesh

PTI, Aug 23, 2024, 6:10 PM IST

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav posed around two dozen questions for the BJP on Friday, saying people across Uttar Pradesh are waiting for the ruling party with these queries.

Listing questions on topics including stray cattle, unemployment, law and order and farmers’ issues in a long post in Hindi on X, Yadav said, “Countless questions are waiting for the BJP’s allies on every footpath, panchayat, street corner, market, square and chowk.” “Now, the public is impatient to tell the BJP’s allies that we will not talk to those who are not with the public,” he added.

Referring to the poor show of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha polls, Yadav claimed that after the election results, factions in the saffron party have lost faith in each other.

By blaming each other, they will neither be able to win back that trust nor any upcoming election, the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister said.

Pointing towards the 10 Assembly bypolls to be held in Uttar Pradesh in the near future, he said, “Now that the BJP’s allies are saying that they will go to the booths and take care of the arrangements, it clearly means that in view of the historic defeat in the Lok Sabha polls, they are assuming that the BJP workers have left the booths out of despair or the power-hungry allies of the BJP, wearing masks, no longer have faith in the BJP workers.” “Actually, after the election defeat, the BJP factions have lost trust among themselves. Another aspect is that the BJP’s allies want to show that they were not the reason for the defeat, they are still powerful, it is the BJP that has become weak,” Yadav added.

He claimed that in both scenarios, it is proved that the BJP members have accepted defeat and are extremely worried about the future.

“But by blaming each other, they will neither be able to win back that trust nor any upcoming election,” the SP chief said.

In the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections, of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, the SP won 37 and its ally Congress won six, while the BJP won 33 and its ally Rashtriya Lok Dal won two and Apna Dal (S) one seat. One seat was won by the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram).

Political parties are busy preparing for the bypolls to the 10 Assembly seats that fell vacant after nine MLAs were elected to the Lok Sabha and one MLA was sentenced to jail by a court.

Hitting out at the BJP, Yadav said, “Those who indulge in the politics of divisions have themselves become divided.” “Have the ‘Panna Pramukhs’ that the BJP used to talk about under its Chanakya Niti become history now? If they are not available today, there are some important reasons behind it,” he added.

The BJP has appointed a “panna pramukh” for every page of the voter list in Uttar Pradesh.

Taking a dig at the saffron party, Yadav said, “Now, the few BJP workers who are left in the party are frustrated thinking that in the current situation, when 90 per cent of the PDA (backwards, Dalits, minorities) communities have woken up and are standing with those who talk about PDA, whom should they go to asking for votes.”