BJP will be ‘wiped out in western UP’ in the election, Akhilesh says

Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday said Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and the ruling BJP would be “wiped out” in parts of Uttar Pradesh in next year’s assembly election.

With ally Jayant Choudhary, chief of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), at his side, the former CM accused the BJP, which swept to power in 2017 with 312 of the state’s 403 seats, of stealing credit for projects that started during his party’s rule.

“Looking at anger among the people, BJP can even lose 400 seats. They will be wiped out in Western UP,” Yadav said.

The two leaders sought to dismantle the BJP’s claims of development, which the ruling party has placed front and centre of the election. 

“The older tradition was: Hit the coconut on the road and the coconut breaks. The new tradition they have started is hit the coconut on ground and the ground must break,” he told NDTV, speaking on the sidelines of a rally in Mathura.

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Yadav was speaking about the quality of rural roads constructed under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana in UP by referring to a recent incident in which a portion of a brand new road cracked open instead of the coconut used to inaugurate it.

Suchi Mausam Chaudhary, the BJP MLA from Bijnor Sadar, was left furious at the traditional inauguration when bits of the seven-kilometre road, renovated at a cost of ₹1.16 crore, came off when struck by a coconut.

In his address, Yadav had spoken of the BJP’s “misrule” in terms of jobs, education development and farmers’ issues. Asked about his remark that the “Baba [Yogi Adityanath] just sits in Gorakhpur and rings a bell [while all this is happening),” and how it would be received by the state’s Hindu voters, Choudhary spoke up. “Adityanath is not a symbol of Hindu unity, he can be questioned,” he said. “This is not an issue about Hindu pride but issues like unemployment. Adityanath said he will give 70 lakh jobs. Today, their own posters say they have given only four lakh jobs.”