Akhilesh Yadav addressing a mega rally in UP's Banda
In a sharp attack on Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav today asked a cheering crowd at an election rally if they wanted a "Yogi Sarkar or Yogya Sarkar (able government)". The former Chief Minister's jibe came as he launched the fifth part of the Samajwadi Vijay Yatra today ahead of the politically prized 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections where he appears to have emerged as the chief challenger to the BJP and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
"Aap ko Yogi sarkaar chahiye ya yogya sarkaar chahiye (do you need a Yogi government or an able government?). These people have taken back Uttar Pradesh by many years. There is politics of hate and loot, this has never happened before. Their progress is only in pictures and even in them they showed a photo of a flyover from Kolkata, industries from America; they lie even in ads. Those who show fake ads and dreams, we have to throw them out," Mr Yadav said at a rally attended by thousands of supporters.
Asserting its toughness, the Yogi Adityanath government has been boasting it has run bulldozers over properties of criminals and been tough on mafia. Flipping the phrase, Akhilesh Yadav said there will be a "vote ka bulldozer (a bulldozer of votes)" that will sink the BJP.
"This is a government of bulldozers. But they should understand bulldozers run on roads and not on people. The people this time have the power of the vote. Itna vote ka bulldozer chalega ki Bharatiya Janata Party ka pataa nahi lagega (There will be a bulldozer of votes that will sink the BJP)", Mr Yadav said at the rally.
Shifting gears, the Samajwadi party president also took on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who alleged last month at an event in Uttar Pradesh's Kushinagar that Mr Yadav's party has moved away from 'samajwad' or socialism to 'parivaarwad' or being a family-run party.
"We Samajwadi people, we understand the problems of the poor, we are 'parivaar waale log' (family oriented people) so we understand what it means for a labourer or a farmer to lose their life. We are family-oriented people so we have helped people in the past. 'Parivaar waale hi parivaar waalon ka dukh samajh sakte hain, jinke paas parivaar nahin hain woh aapka dukh kya samjhenge (those who have families can understand the plight of others with families; how will those who don't have families understand this)," Mr Yadav said at the Banda rally.
In a counter move, the BJP has announced a series of its own 'yatras' in Uttar Pradesh to galvanise party cadre ahead of the big election next year. BJP's Uttar Pradesh chief Swatantra Dev Singh made the announcement on Twitter.
The BJP has not revealed the name of the 'yatras' officially, but it has been reported earlier that the party was planning 'Vijay Sankalp Yatras' for the state.
The yatras will take place just after PM Modi's big election push in the state. Next week, PM Modi is likely to be in UP twice - first in Gorakhpur, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's homestead to inaugurate a fertilizer factory and then in his Lok Sabha seat Varanasi to inaugurate the multi crore Kashi Viswanath corridor project.