Continuing his campaign against Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said they had cheated the people by doing nothing for development of the state.
"Taking into account the regimes of Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav, the people of Uttar Pradesh have lost hope for all-round development of the state," Gandhi, on a five-day tour of state that goes to polls next year, said in Balrampur district, 250 km from here.
"Changing Uttar Pradesh is not a big task, provided we all work together. Congress will give Uttar Pradesh a ‘government-for-all’, which the state has lacked for the last 20 years." Gandhi had hit out at the two leaders in Bahraich district on Wednesday as well. On the third day of his mass contact programme, the MP said people in Uttar Pradesh did not have access to good roads, drinking water, electricity and other basic amenities in Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) regime.
“You showed faith in the BSP but its government has not taken any serious steps for development and progress of the state. Be it generating employment for youths, better transportation facilities or provisions to solve problems related to drinking water and electricity. The government has failed on all fronts,” said Gandhi. He did not spare the SP either: “It took (former chief minister) Mulayam Singh Yadav just minutes to join hands with Kalyan Singh (Bharatiya Janata Party rebel) after thinking about difficulties in the elections. He forgot your pain.
"In the past SP regime too, people did not get justice. At that time, police stations were run by criminals,” said Gandhi. Reiterating that the Mayawati government was “misusing Central government's funds meant for the poor”, Gandhi said even the package of Rs 3,000 crores for the Bundelkhand region had been eaten away. Though the BSP government had on Wednesday denied his statement that Mayawati had raised questions over the utility of MGNREGS, Gandhi insisted: “Mayawati had publicly said in a rally in Lucknow October 2007 that MGNREGS would not be of any help for the poor in Uttar Pradesh.” He also accused the Mayawati government of working against farmers: “Thousands of kilometres of land has been acquired for Ganga Expressway and Yamuna Expressway projects by the Mayawati government.
Whenever farmers raise their voice against the forcible land acquisition, they are shot at. “Farmers were shot at in Tappal, and in Bhatta Parsaul too. Atrocities were committed on women. Where was the Samajwadi Party then? It was the Congress that fought for the rights of the farmers." He again touched on the theme of the lack of employment avenues in the state and attacked the Shiv Sena for “driving away the people of Uttar Pradesh from Maharashtra”. Recalling his train journey with some labourers of Uttar Pradesh, Gandhi said: “They (labourers) told me about the problems they face while working in Maharashtra. They asked me how long they will have to go to Maharashtra and other states in search of employment.”