LUCKNOW: Accusing the BJP of considering people from the “PDA” – backward (‘pichde’ in Hindi), Dalits and minorities (‘alpsankhyak’) – as “shudras”, Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said the ruling party will be defeated in the Lok Sabha elections next year.
Yadav said opposition bloc INDIA and people from the PDA groups will remove the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from power in 2024 the way Hindu-Muslim unity drove the British out of the country.
अगस्त क्रांति दिवस के अवसर पर माँ भारती के लिए अपने प्राणों की आहुति देने वाले सभी अमर वीर शहीदों को सादर नमन एवं विनम्र श्रद्धांजलि! pic.twitter.com/UEc8auE7gO
— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) August 9, 2023
Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a programme organised by the SP here on August Kranti Day, Yadav said, ”The samajwadis (socialists) spent their whole lives promoting the PDA. BJP will never speak on the PDA because it considers them as “shudras”.
“The government should tell us the representation of the PDA in all the vice-chancellors being appointed in the universities of the state,” the former chief minister said.
The INDIA (Indian National Democratic Inclusive Alliance)’ and PDA alliance will defeat the BJP in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Yadav said. The SP is the most valuable member of the opposition alliance in Uttar Pradesh. The SP chief attended both meetings of the opposition leaders held in Patna and Bangalore in recent months.
“The way the British were driven out with Hindu-Muslim unity, in the coming times farmers, youths, businessmen, mothers and sisters and all Hindu-Muslim brothers will work together to oust the BJP,” he said.
“Today, only those forces which had opposed the Quit India Movement are in power,” Yadav said, targeting the BJP. August Kranti Divas is celebrated to observe the Quit India Movement.
Yadav has coined the new term ”PDA” referring to backward classes, Dalits and minorities, who constitute more than half of the electorate in Uttar Pradesh. UP sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha, which is the most for any state.
On the presentation of a report on the 1980 Moradabad riots in the state assembly, Yadav said, ”Elections have come. Now such reports will keep on coming.” On the ruling government’s education policy and employment opportunities, Yadav said, “If you ask them (BJP) about one thing, they will answer about the other thing. Yesterday, in the House, I asked the government about the steps it has taken to safeguard the future of young children. Can their future be better with the new education policy? The question was not about population.” “But what can the youth expect from a chief minister who does not know the difference between employment rate and unemployment rate,” he said.
The SP president accused Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of not trusting his own ministers and officials, and said that he rather trusts Deloitte, an American consulting company hired by the state government for a sum of Rs 300 crore.
Comparing the BJP government with the East India Company, Yadav said, ”India’s government is gradually becoming a company. Privatisation is being done in every sector. When big things are sold, the government is selling community health centres, dairy, small guest houses and mandis. The government which has not built a single market and a single district hospital in its entire tenure, can you expect it to fulfil the dreams seen by the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi?” He added that the dreams that Mahatma Gandhi and the socialists had for a free India are unfulfilled even today. ”Today, we stand at the bottom of (indices on) poverty, unemployment and freedom of the press,” the former chief minister said.
Remembering the martyrs on August Kranti Day, Yadav said, “We remember all the leaders who participated in the Quit India Movement on the call of Mahatma Gandhi. At the same time, we also remember those countless martyrs because of whom we got our freedom.
Source: Press Trust of Indi
