Akhilesh Yadav's Cycle Rally To Feature Notes Ban, Development Metaphors

Ahead of the national election next year, Uttar Pradesh's opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) has drawn an extensive campaign to target the ruling BJP. The campaign will be launched through a 50-km cycle rally on September 16. SP Chief and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has decided to highlight the after-effects of notebandi or demonetization, which was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2016.

The cycle rally will start from Kannauj from where the SP chief plans to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. His wife Dimple Yadav is the current Lok Sabha MP from this seat.

The "Haq aur Samman Yatra" will be flagged off by Khazanchi, who was born outside an ATM soon after the centre's demonetisation announcement. Khazanchi's family lives in abject poverty in a remote village in Kannauj district.

His mother Sarvesha Devi had waited for five hours in a bank queue in Jhinjhak town when she went into labour. Khazanchi, her fifth child, was born after the death of her husband, a snake charmer. Bank employees and others suggested that the newborn be named Khazanchi, which means treasurer or cashier. She agreed.

The baby's birth had made headlines. Mr Yadav, the then UP Chief Minister, had announced Rs 2 lakh for the family.

Khazanchi's mother had waited for five hours in a bank queue when she went into labour.

A major part of this rally will be on the 302-km-long Agra-Lucknow expressway, built during Akhilesh Yadav's tenure as the UP chief minister.

Another child, Akhilesh, who was born on the expressway near Khabauli village in December 2017, will mark the closing of the yatra.

Shivpal Yadav and his wife Meera, residents of Hayatnagar Bhaura village in Unnao district, had started for the hospital when Meera went into labour.

Just when their car reached the airstrip on the expressway, Meera gave birth to their first child. They later named him Akhilesh.

"We have these two children, who are symbolic of the failed demonetisation move and the development vision of the earlier SP government," Akhilesh Yadav said.

"In 2012, a major part of Akhilesh Yadav's campaign was on a bicycle and it was immensely successful. This time, we will aim to tell the people about the difference between the policies of the BJP and his party's vision," said Rajendra Chaudhary, chief spokesperson of the Samajwadi Party.

The SP and its political rival-turned-friend and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati aim to fight the BJP. PM Modi has already launched the BJP's campaign for UP and has visited the state multiple times in the last two months.