Pilibhit (Uttar Pradesh) [India], June 29 (ANI): Launching a scathing attack on Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday accused the Leader of Opposition in Uttar Pradesh Assembly of ignoring Pilibhit while focusing only on his political bastion of Saifai.
CM Yogi alleged that the Samajwadi Party neither had the time nor the intent to understand the hardships of the poor, claiming that development under the previous governemnt was confined to Saifai while districts like Pilibhit remained neglected.
Taking a swipe at the SP chief’s lifestyle and contrasting it with the BJP government’s development narrative, Yogi said, “If one wakes up at noon, gets ready by 2 PM, and heads to the gym at 5 PM, where is the time or inclination to listen to the plight of the poor? For them, development means only the development of Saifai; Pilibhit was never on their agenda. Had it been, a medical college would have been built there during their four terms in power.”
The Chief Minister also spoke about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), describing it as a landmark step that finally delivered justice to persecuted minorities who had fled religious persecution in neighbouring countries.
He said, “Today, we have a ‘double-engine’ government and the Citizenship Amendment Act; after a long time, a government has recognised that displaced Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Jains, who were uprooted from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, should be granted Indian citizenship.”
Stepping up his attack on the Opposition, Yogi accused the Congress and the Samajwadi Party of resisting the implementation of the CAA and opposing citizenship for eligible refugees.
Referring to earlier protests against the law, he said, “Recall how the Congress and the Samajwadi Party staged protests in Delhi and various states; the very certificates being distributed today are what they agitated against, insisting that these people should not receive them. Their primary objective is that, despite the Partition, Muslims should have the first right to the country’s resources, to the exclusion of everyone else.”
Continuing his criticism, the Chief Minister alleged that the Opposition had pursued appeasement politics for decades while ignoring the plight of displaced Hindu families, and contrasted it with what he described as the BJP government’s compassionate approach.
“This was their malicious intent; this was their policy of appeasement. They committed this sin throughout their lives, and it was the Hindus who bore the brunt of it. We empathised with the suffering of these impoverished people. The Samajwadi Party could have shown similar empathy, they had the opportunity to govern four times, but that would have required “Babua” to have the habit of waking up on time,” CM added.
Yogi was addressing a public gathering after inaugurating and laying the foundation stone of 66 development projects worth Rs 569 crore in Pilibhit. (ANI)
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