The former chief minister also alleged that the Yogi Adityanath government had compromised with the quality of the expressway.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has said he will symbolically inaugurate the ‘Samajwadi Purvanchal Expressway’ by offering flowers as the Ghazipur district administration has denied permission for his Rath Yatra.
Yadav also claimed the BJP was five years behind SP as during the SP regime, fighter jets had landed on the Agra-Lucknow Expressway and now a similar exercise would be done on the Purvanchal Expressway.
Speaking to the media in Lucknow on Monday, Yadav said, “Our senior leaders met the Ghazipur District Magistrate but permission has still not been granted for our programme. In such a case, I will symbolically inaugurate the ‘Samajwadi Purvanchal Expressway’ by offering flowers on Tuesday. There is already a deployment of police outside the houses of Samajwadi Party leaders in Sultanpur.”
He added, “The BJP has not done anything of their own in the last four-and-a-half years which they could have inaugurated; the work for Samajwadi Purvanchal Expressway was started during the SP regime. Now I am getting to know that BJP is trying to copy SP by making fighter jets land on the expressway. We did that five years back on Agra-Lucknow Expressway and had set an example. The BJP is five years behind us.”
The former chief minister also alleged that the Yogi Adityanath government had compromised with the quality of the expressway. “The company which is building the Ram Temple was about to do this project but BJP changed the company too. There are no amenities on the expressway as of now, not even toilets are built. Kindly go on this expressway at your own risk,” he quipped.
The Ghazipur district administration has denied permission to Yadav’s Vijay Rath Yatra which was scheduled from November 16 from the city to Azamgarh as PM Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit the state on the same day to inaugurate the Purvanchal Expressway.
As per the order of MP Singh, the District Magistrate of Ghazipur, the traffic on Purvanchal Expressway will remain suspended on November 16 due to security reasons. The DM has asked Samajwadi Party leaders to reschedule the Rath Yatra on November 17 or any other preferred day. Yadav along with SBSP chief Om Prakash Rajbhar were expected to share the stage on the Rath Yatra.
