As the UP elections are closing in, the political parties are resorting to new tactics to attract voters. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding rally after rally in prominent UP districts asking the people to get rid of the Samajwadi Party, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is trying to ensure his return to power in 2017, by loudly publicising the developmental work his administration has accomplished in the state over the last 5 years.

DIFFERENT STRATEGIES

Every day, Akhilesh is announcing new schemes and laying keystones to projects that have no hopes of being completing unless the Samajwadi Party returns to power. The youth have been given an open offer of a smartphone in return of re-electing Akhilesh Yadav as UP CM.

BSP Supremo Mayawati is sticking to her age-old agenda of Dalit-Muslim upliftment when the Congress is now content with a limited role in UP politics, having struck a deal of seat-sharing with the Samajwadi Party.

Keeping the 2017 elections in mind, Akhilesh Yadav laid the keystone for a mega thermal power project in the Etah district of Agra zone and several others with an aggregate cost of Rs 52,600 crores.

Here's what Akhilesh Yadav said to India Today after the ceremony: Akhilesh said that Modi government claims that demonetisation put a brake on terrorism in Kashmir, but it was a fact that every week Army was losing brave officers and jawans to these cowardly attacks by terrorists. He said that in the guise of 'Achhe Din' Modi has entangled the country in a web that it is finding difficult to extricate itself from. He said that only the farmers, the poor, and the middle-class were seen standing in lines, whereas the rich got their currency changed in bulk through back channels. He added that the Modi government could not give proof of the surgical strikes on Pakistan occupied Kashmir and so it chose to announce demonetisation to throw off the people. Criticizing the low level of debate between Rahul Gandhi and PM Modi, he said that today one leader warns that if he talks, there will be an earthquake and the other leader ridicules the first by joking about earthquakes. He said that the PM is so hell-bent on implementing a cashless economy in India, but the farmers and labourers do not know what cashless economy is. Laughing away the BSP's stake at power in UP, he said that the BSP's elephant has not moved an inch in the past five years whereas the Samajwadi Party's developmental works can be seen all over the state in the form of expressways, metro trains, samajwadi ambulances and more. He said that if his government forms again in 2017, he will induct one lakh youth into the police. Not specifically commenting on anyone, he said that he learned politics from the deception of his near and dear ones who had joined hands with other parties to weaken him. The Jawaharpur thermal power project had been announced by the then UP Chief Minister and Akhilesh's father Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1993 and since then nothing had been done about it. However, with a closely contested election round the corner, the project is being completed with the assistance of a Korean company at the cost of about Rs. 10000 crores, which will generate about 1320 megawatts of power.

ALSO READ:

BJP's Parivartan Yatra to culminate in Lucknow today

State of States: Thumbs UP for Akhilesh Yadav's growth plans