Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said the voters of Uttar Pradesh would throw the BJP “seven seas away” where its “friends” had gone, alluding to the businessmen who have fled India after being accused of bank fraud.
“The people will throw them (the BJP) seven seas away…. The people will push them to places where their friends have gone,” the Samajwadi Party president said at a rally in Azamgarh, his parliamentary constituency, ahead of the final phase of polling on March 7.
The Opposition accuses the Narendra Modi government of providing fugitive businessmen such as Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi with safe passage away from Indian law.
The theme of crony capitalism featured in a big way in Akhilesh’s speech.
He said the Modi government sold off aircraft, airports, trains and prime railway station land and would now sell off the railway stations themselves.
“They have also sold steamers and ports. They did this so that nobody asks them for (government) jobs,” he said.
Akhilesh accused the Yogi Adityanath government of blocking Azamgarh’s development.
“Tell me, didn’t they insult you and me for five years? The government and their people snatched from us everything in five years…. They blocked the development of Azamgarh,” he said.
“They plundered the farmers for five years. The farmers stay awake at night to protect their fields,” he added in an apparent allusion to the menace of stray cattle, seen as a result of the state government’s crackdown on cattle trade and transport.
Akhilesh appealed to the voters to send chief minister Adityanath “back home” to the Gorakshnath temple in Gorakhpur.
“Tell me whether you are sending Babaji back home. Are you going to say ‘bye bye’ to Babaji?” he said.
The crowd chanted: “Yes, yes.”
“They call me parivarwadi (those who work only for their families). I want to tell them that family people take home something for their children. You (Adityanath) too take biscuits for your Gullu when you return to Gorakhpur,” Akhilesh said.
Adityanath has a Labrador, Kalu, at his temple but some people call it Gullu.
Of the 10 Assembly constituencies in Azamgarh, where Muslims and Yadavs have substantial populations, the BJP won only Phulpur in 2017. The Samajwadis hold three seats and the Bahujan Samaj Party the remaining six.
Modi and Adityanath have been delivering polarising speeches, stressing that of the 38 people recently awarded the death sentence for the 2008 Ahmedabad blasts, three are from Azamgarh.
They have also claimed that the father of one of these three youths, Mohammad Saif, is a Samajwadi campaigner. According to the Samajwadi Party, it had expelled Saif’s father Shadab Ahmad as far back as 2008.
Tariq Shafique, a resident of Saif’s village of Sanjarpur, told The Telegraph: “Shadab’s ancestors were in the Azad Hind Fauj of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Appeals against the convictions have been filed in the high court. We all know that the youths from Azamgarh are innocent.”
