The SP workers dedicated the expressway to the public by cycling and showering flowers
The Samajwadi Party on Tuesday carried out a parallel inauguration of the Purvanchal Expressway by showering flowers over its various stretches and cycling on them around the time Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated the 341-km highway to people.
The SP workers staged the show while reiterating its chief Akhilesh Yadav's claim that the project to connect Lucknow to Ballia was first launched by his government.
"SP works for the public. The SP workers dedicated the expressway to the public by cycling and showering flowers on the Samajwadi Purvanchal Expressway,” the party said on its Twitter handle.
“This will accelerate the progress of Purvanchal (eastern UP). Congratulations and best wishes,” the party said, also uploading the pictures of its workers' celebration on the occasion.
SP president and former Chief Minister Yadav had on Monday said on Twitter that "in all the districts through which the 'Samajwadi Purvanchal Expressway' is passing, the district committees of the party will inaugurate this public welfare work by showering flowers on the expressway on November 16”.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 341-km expressway from Lucknow to Ghazipur in Sultanpur where he himself landed in a military transport aircraft on a 3.2-km stretch developed as an emergency air strip for the Indian Air Force.
Apparently peeved after coming to know of Prime Minister Modi plans to land at the expressway's airstrip for the inauguration, Mr Yadav had on Monday tweeted, “Some people rule only like this by landing their planes on others' airstrips.”
Mr Yadav, who had been assiduously claiming that the foundation stone for the project was first laid by him during his tenure as the UP chief minister, had also shared a picture of a purported newspaper advertisement for the foundation stone laying ceremony by him on December 22, 2016, a Thursday.
After the inauguration ceremony of the expressway on Tuesday, Mr Yadav made another tweet, mocking Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath showing him showing him walking behind the car of Prime Minister Narndra Modi on the expressway.
"You gave me a good return of all my hospitality and made me undertake a humble march even before the people conferred the humiliating fate on me,” Mr Yadav said in his tweet in Hindi, tagging with it a picture of Yogi, seen walking behind the PM's car.