By Kulsum Mustafa
Lucknow: Samajwadi Party national president, and former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav, has come out strongly against the false propaganda of Chief Minister Yogi Adithnath claiming that the state Panchayati elections were fair, and free and were conducted peacefully in the state.
At a press conference called on Sunday, at the party office, in Lucknow this afternoon, Akhilesh lashed out at Yogi for giving totally false and misleading information to the people. He was also highly critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for closing his eyes to the ground reality in the state and instead of reprimanding him and demanding him to take stock of the deteriorating law and order situation he was congratulating yogi and his machinery for conducting the polls well and winning them with a huge majority.
“Yeh jantantra ki hatiya hain ( this is the murder of democracy ) said an angry Akhilesh Yadav. He has charged the district administration of being hand in gloves with the ruling party and said that the police were in collusion with the violators of law and looked the other way.
A highly disturbed Akhilesh told media persons that the situation in UP is scary. He said Yogi and his men have shattered all democratic norms and reduced all parameters of decency to naught. He expressed concern and said it is shameful the way the state machinery has been used to support violence and prevent candidates from filing their election papers. He said that all the while the ‘pre-directed’ police force followed the orders of higher-ups. Akhilesh said that in broad sunlight the hired goons attacked and prevented Samajwadi Party candidates from filing nominations and they went as far as to tear off the nomination papers, physically assaulted women candidates and supporters from the SP party. He said media persons who were trying to capture these unlawful acts on their cameras were brutally beaten up. But he said no matter how much Yogi tries he cannot hoodwink the masses who are watching these anti- people’s activities being done without fear supported by the state machinery and helped by those officers holding important posts trying to save their jobs. Yogi has openly threatened to throw anyone out who does not perform which primarily implies those who fail to comply with his orders. The SP chief said that BJP knows that its poor performance in the state will not give them another chance so they are desperate and want to do anything and by hook or crook they want to retain the reign of power. Yogi Adityanath is going all out to create a positive which was shattered totally after the state healthcare system and state machinery totally collapsed in the second wave of Corona-19. He wants to present a rosy picture before the 2022 state assembly elections slated in a few months’ time. For this he is depending heavily on false propaganda, ordering strict punishments for those officers who fail to comply with his dictates. But his claims are so untrue that they are laughable. In this era of social media when nothing can be hidden from the eye of the common man and when the mayhem was caput
You can forgive a person once, maybe twice but certainly not the third time. Seems Yogi Adityanath is getting into the habit of speaking blatant lies without any respect of photographic evidence proving just the opposite. A chief minister who avoids media came to address a press conference on Saturday, at the BJP state headquarters and declared the victory of his party at three-tier rural local bodies poll present. Alongside the CM sat the deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma, and the state party present Swatabtra Dev Singh. The latter even made it clear, in case someone took it otherwise that Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya could not attend as he was not in town.
It was shocking to hear Yogi declare that the three-tier rural polls took place amidst a robust law and order situation. This when all the news channels, both national and regional have been showing the violence and total mayhem in many places, including the use of guns. Clips of goons misbehavior with rival party female candidates, heckling them and even attempting to pull off her sari, forceful attempts to stop nomination by the rival parties candidates and all in the presence of the police. With all this BJP managed to secure 630 seats of block pramukh seats from the total of 825, while SP managed 70 and Congress just two.
The two earlier times when Yogi made press statements were also to announce that there was no violence in the panchayat elections and that everything was fully controlled and peaceful.
In April when the entire state healthcare system had collapsed and people were dying on the streets as there was no oxygen, medicines, or hospital bed, and to top it hundreds of bodies were found floating in the Gomti, allegedly of COVID patients, the CM did not shy away from declaring that “all was well and that there was no shortage of either oxygen. Now at the time he was speaking, all the TV channels were relaying scenes of Violence. There were clips where they showed even the SP of telling on his mobile, presumably to his senior officers that he has been attacked and slapped by the BJP goons and that they had even brought bombs with them.
It is being alleged that there were orders to handle things and ensure the victory of BJP candidates or those being supported by BJP at all cost
NDTV correspondent Kamal Khan said in his report that how is it possible that 2.5 lakh police personnel are not able to control elections of less than 50,000 people.
Sheetal P Singh in his programme on Satya Hindi com expressed great concern about the way all democratic traditions and institutions are being trampled upon.
“It is shameful the way Yogi has ………………”,
Yogi knows that his party has lost ground in the state. His being away from the state as a star campaigner and leaving the affairs of the state in the hands of few officers he trusted had a lot of negative impacts. So as soon as he was cured of the Covid which many alleged was his way of escaping the wrath of people, he got into a proactive mode and started back-to-back tours of all the 18 commissionerates He issued stern warnings and directed the officers to perform.
Now Mega welfare schemes like schemes of opening nine medical colleges are afloat to lure the voters and win back loyalty,
If this happens then it will be proved that public memory is very short and people’s love for those dear ones holds no meaning. The haunting people pictures of mounting lines of dead at cremation sites, the floated bodies being eaten by strat dogs, hundreds who died performing poll duties, people dying on the streets, lack of oxygen, medicines and hospital beds, visuals of hundreds of suspected Corona deaths, floating bodies in the Ganga, buried bodies in the sands in Prayagraj went global bringing shame to the government
The government fudged the figures but the opposition says lakhs of people have died in UP’s villages due to Covid.