Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh over the recently released data on police encounters, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday accused it of attempting to create a misleading perception about law and order in the state.
Addressing a press conference at the SP headquarters in Lucknow, Yadav said, “The BJP government only wants to create a perception that encounters have improved law and order. If that were true, why haven’t heinous crimes stopped in the state yet? Why don’t bulldozers run on Akhilesh Dubey’s assets? Why has no encounter been carried out in that case? These encounter figures are meant to scare people. Nothing more. Many innocent people have been killed, and even police personnel have been jailed in several cases.”
On Tuesday, the UP government released figures showing that over the last 8.5 years, 256 hardened criminals have been killed in 15,726 police encounters. As per the data, 31,960 criminals were arrested, 10,324 injured, while 18 police personnel lost their lives and 1,754 were injured during the operations.
Yadav also hit out at the government over the Gomti river cleaning project, saying, “The government has suddenly remembered cleaning the Gomti now that its term is ending. When there is a genuine plan to clean rivers, the SP government’s earlier schemes to clean the Gomti and Varuna must be implemented. This government is not cleaning the Gomti; it is cleaning out funds. They are building riverfronts on drains and planning how to loot public money.”
On the rising gold prices, he said that gold was expected to touch ₹1.5 lakh per 10 grams by Diwali. With the marriage season approaching, how will poor families afford gold ornaments?”
On the government’s initiative of adopting Swadeshi, the SP chief alleged that it was a ploy to divert people’s attention.
He also alleged that the government had been unable to provide fertilisers to farmers.
On the Congress and SP contesting teacher and graduate constituencies separately, Yadav said, “We are very much in alliance and we will further strengthen it. This is a very personal election which many teachers and other organisations contest. It requires a lot of hard work.”