india

Updated: Jun 23, 2019 12:01 IST

With his government under attack from the opposition over the ‘deteriorating’ law and order situation and ‘rising’ crime against women, chief minister Yogi Adityanath has chosen Azamgarh to begin holding review meetings to ‘tighten’ the screw on ‘lax’ official machinery.

“The chief minister will hold his first meeting on Sunday to review law and order situation and implementation of development projects in Azamgarh and Jaunpur (Varanasi division),” said an official spokesman.

Besides review of crime against women that remains on top of his agenda, action against criminals, land mafia, illegal mining, traffic management, the progress of construction of cow shelters, Pradhan Mantri Avas Yojana and implementation of drinking water schemes etc. will also come for a close scrutiny.

Azamgarh is the Lok Sabha seat of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav.

Senior officers though denied any political motive behind the move, those aware with the development admitted Yogi’s decision to begin from Azamgarh was not merely a coincidence.

“His decision is not a coincidence. The BJP lost the Azamgarh seat in 2019 Lok Sabha elections and Yogi obviously wants to know what went wrong -whether the benefits of government schemes have reached the people at grass roots level and whether the official machinery has been able to implement programmes in accordance with government policies—and take corrective measures after taking the right feedback from the grassroots levels,” said an official functionary.

Considered to be a stronghold of the Samajwadi Party, Azamgarh had remained in focus in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections too. Yogi had blamed the Samajwadi Party for turning Azamgarh into a hub of terror activity.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had called Yogi “Thokidar” (encounter specialist) and the chief minister had called the SP chief ‘goondon ka sartaj’ in 2019 poll campaign. Yogi has time and again referred to arrest of a leader associated with the SP in Azamgarh to counter the SP leaders questioning his government for deaths in illicit liquor tragedies in the state.

UP BJP general secretary Vijay Pathak, however, said the chief minister’s review meetings should not be viewed with any political prism. “For the chief minister all the divisions are equally important and he wants to ensure that development reached all the regions. Alphabetically too Azamgarh comes first,” he said.