"'Baba Bulldozer' Will Be Gone": Akhilesh Yadav Jabs Yogi Adityanath

Amid the ongoing polling for the third phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav took a jibe at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday, calling him "Baba Bulldozer" and said that "Baba" will lose election just like contentious farm laws were withdrawn.

"BJP leaders are now learning abcd, I want to tell them, "agar Kaka chale gaye toh Baba bhi chale jaenge" (if black farm laws were taken back, Chief Minister Yogi will also go back)," said Mr Yadav while addressing a rally in Rudauli of Ayodhya district.

Akhilesh Yadav said, "He (Yogi Adityanath) changed the name of everything. Till now we were calling him "Baba Chief Minister" but today one of the reputed English newspapers called him "Baba Bulldozer". I have not kept this name, this name was kept by a reputed English newspaper. And the time the vote is held, the government will change."

"Bulldozer" is a reference to the action taken by the Yogi government to vacate illegally occupied land and properties using the machine Bulldozer.

In the third phase of the Uttar Pradesh polls, 59 assembly seats across 16 districts went to the polls on Sunday. As many as 627 candidates are in the fray.

Over 2.16 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise at 25,794 polling places and 15,557 polling stations in the third phase of Assembly elections.

Uttar Pradesh in its third phase of the Assembly elections recorded an average voter turnout of 48.81 per cent till 3 pm on Sunday.

According to the data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI), in Uttar Pradesh, Lalitpur recorded a high average voter turnout of 59.18 per cent till 3 pm, followed by Etah with 53.20 per cent.

Manpuri had an average voter turnout of 52.51 per cent, in Mahoba it was at 51.72 per cent and in Firozabad it is 51.09 per cent. The lowest voter turnout till 3 pm was in Kanpur Nagar till 41.41 per cent.

Subsequent phases are taking place on February 23, 27, and March 3 and 7. The counting of votes will be done on March 10.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)