Lucknow, July 11 (UNI) The Samajwadi Party has planned a rally in Azamgarh on Thursday to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to lay foundation stone of Purvanchal Expressway, saying why Mr Modi is laying foundation stone of the Expressway, whose foundation is already been laid by the SP government.
'BJP government is bereft of ideas and therefore, is either inaugurating or laying foundation of projects, which were done earlier during the regime of Samajwadi Party,' SP national president Akhilesh Yadav said in a statement here on Wednesday.
Mr Modi is likely to lay the foundation stone of Purvanchal Expressway on July 14 in Azamgarh, the Parliamentary constituency of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav. SP claims that foundation stone of the Expressway was already laid on December 22, 2016. It also released pictures of the function, which was attended by almost the whole Cabinet of the then Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
The SP national president had earlier blamed Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for inaugurating the commercial run of the Metro Rail project in Lucknow, which he claimed, was inaugurated by Mulayam Singh Yadav in 2016.
Mr Yadav said that during the SP regime, the proposed Purvanchal Expressway was from Lucknow to Ballia, but this government curtailed it to Ghazipur.
'In our regime, the Expressway was to be constructed in six packages, but BJP first reduced its length and then to accommodate its people, made it an eight-package expressway. Despite that, twice tenders were cancelled, because BJP government's proposals lacked transparency,' the former chief minister alleged.
He even said that his government had acquired almost 50 per cent of the land for the proposed Expressway.
'As we got support from masses, we named the project as Samajwadi Purvanchal Expressway, but BJP government dropped the 'Samajwadi' word because it is allergic to the word,' he said.
The hard-hitting statement of Mr Yadav came a day after he had called BJP government as 'kainchi ki sarkar,' which is busy in ribbon-cutting of the projects, which were initiated by the previous government.
His statement came a day after the Prime Minister, along with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon inaugurated the Samsung mobile manufacturing unit in Noida. Mr Yadav claimed that the proposals of the project were cleared during his regime.
'The priority of BJP government had never been the farmers or poor. It works for the welfare of the corporate sector and this reflects in its policies,' he said.
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