Samajwadi Party president and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has reportedly alleged that the police officers in Uttar Pradesh are following the ‘Thoko Neeti’ (encounter policy) of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to avoid getting transferred.

Raising questions on the prevailing law and order situation in the state, the former chief minister claimed that criminals have ‘doubled’ in Uttar Pradesh under the Bharatiya Janata Party rule and ‘law and order situation was not so bad earlier’.

“UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is advocating his Thoko Neeti (encounter policy) everywhere. Due to this, there is a trend among the police officials that they undertake encounters when they anticipate that they can be transferred. Their acts are emulated by their subordinates,” Yadav told reporters in Lucknow.

He alleged that there were numerous instances of crime against women.

“Due to this, we are forced to cut a sorry figure in the global arena,” he said.

Attacking the BJP, the SP chief said, “This time, the government is not of the BJP, but of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

“People in the government had taken two oaths — one of the Constitution, the other of the RSS.”

“But, both these oaths are contradictory to each other. A number of poll promises were made by the BJP in its Sankalp Patra (poll manifesto), but after passage of more than one-and-half years, work on fulfilling the promises is yet to begin,” Yadav alleged.

He also accused the BJP government of not fulfilling the promises made to the farmers, as a result of which, the SP chief claimed, lakhs of peasants have quit farming and are working as labourers to earn livelihood.

Yadav also exuded confidence that the country will get a new prime minister in the New Year (2019).