The Uttar Pradesh assembly was once again witness to the bonhomie between chief minister Yogi Adityanath and Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav on Friday. The chief minister advised him to part ways with the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP as the party will not do justice to him, saying: “Chacchu abhi se raasta tay karlo, jab bhi aapka number aata hai aapko chupchaap kaat diya jata hai (…you must decide sooner or later because you’re always suppressed when it’s your turn to shine).”
Besides, he also took potshots at Akhilesh saying the ‘double-engine’ government will return to power in 2024, and the SP will not even be able to open its account. “You should learn from your past experiences – be it 2014, 2017, 2019, 2022 and now 2024. In 2024, a double engine government will repeat and I must say that chacchu election se pehle raasta tay kar lo. You are a good person and the SP have overlooked your struggle and sacrifice for the party; it won’t do justice to you,” Yogi told Shivpal, while speaking during the monsoon session that began on August 7.
He added: “Those born with a silver spoon don’t know the pain of the poor and downtrodden. You (Akhilesh Yadav) need not worry about the state as you will not be able to open your account in 2024. The public has rejected you so many times and, for you, the lines of Hindi poet Dushyant Kumar, that you have no ground beneath your feet, are most apt.”
This is not the first time that the state assembly has witnessed the Yogi-Shivpal banter. It was during the budget session earlier this year, when the CM lashed out at the opposition and took a jibe at Akhilesh. But, his stance about Shivpal remained soft.
“I respect you as you were treated wrongly and were subjected to struggle and injustice,” he had said during his address in the budget session.
The Yogi-Shivpal conversation did not stop there, as he went ahead and said had Shivpal been in the BJP, the situation would have been different. At this, Shivpal had told the CM: “We were in touch with each other for three long years,” to which Yogi added, “we are still in touch.”
Yogi hits out at Akhilesh for neglecting encephalitis
At the monsoon session, the CM also listed the achievements of the BJP government in the state, explaining what it had done to deal with encephalitis and targeted the SP over its incompetence. He said 50,000 children had died in 40 years in eastern UP due to encephalitis. He then targeted the opposition party saying the SP got the opportunity four times but did not do anything to solve the problem.
“At least 90 percent of the children who died belonged to Dalit, minority and the extreme backward castes. Was there no PDA?” he questioned, referring to the term coined by Akhilesh Yadav for ‘pichhde (backward), Dalit and alpasankhyak (minority)’ when he made a statement on how these communities shared a consciousness and feeling against exploitation and oppression.
Yogi further questioned Akhilesh on his five-year term as CM. “What were you doing that you couldn’t solve the problem?” he asked.
The CM shared his achievement that the BJP government was able to completely solve the problem in its first term. “Go to Kushinagar, Maharajganj, Deoriya, Gorakhpur, Siddharthnagar, Sant Kabir Nagar, Basti, Bahraich, Balrampur, Shravasti, Gonda, Lakhimpur Kheri, Pilibhit or till Saharanpur, encephalitis has ended; just the announcement is left,” he said.
The state government also started the ‘Dastak’ campaign in 2018 that resulted in the vaccination of every child against Japanese encephalitis (JE) and acute encephalitis syndrome (ASE), covering 38 affected districts. This led to the occurrence of the disease dropping by more than half as compared to the previous year.
Deaths due to encephalitis decreased by 90 percent within a couple of years. In 2017, the mortality rate was an improvement at 15 percent, and it was largely credited to a mass vaccination drive targeting 88 lakh children. In 2018, the mortality rate was 11 percent.
Earlier in the day, Akhilesh hit out at the BJP and alleged that the party is now known for its “hatred and corruption”. “Earlier, they (BJP government) used to recognise themselves with ‘chaal, charitra aur chehra’, but now they are known for hatred, corruption, unemployment and inflation… How is a $1-trillion economy possible without the help of farmers and without improvement in the agriculture sector?” he asked in the assembly.
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