Lucknow: BSP national convener Akash Anand on Monday attacked BJP govt over inflation, unemployment, law and order, education and development.Addressing his first public meeting in support BSP candidate Dr Avin Sharma in Sadabad constituency of Hathras ahead of the next year’s election, Akash said BJP had promised to control inflation but had failed to deliver. “People who found petrol at Rs 60 per litre expensive are today buying petrol at around Rs 110 a litre,” said Akash, who is Mayawati’s nephew.Urging voters to “vote for work and not manifestos, fake promises or freebies,” Akash claimed BJP govt spent over Rs 7,000 crore of taxpayers’ money on advertisements over the past decade to cover up its failures. Referring to campaigns projecting Uttar Pradesh as “Viksit-UP, Shikshit-UP and Surakshit-UP”, he termed them a “farce”.On law and order, Akash questioned govt’s record on crime and women’s safety and took a dig at CM Yogi Adityanath’s claims of being an ‘encounter specialist’.Akash accused govt of shutting over 25,000 schools in the state over the last decade. “Wealthier families can afford private schools, but poor families cannot. Govt fears that if our children get educated, they will question it on reservation, education, employment and law and order,” he said.On unemployment, he alleged that govt manipulated statistics and counted anyone earning even occasionally through activities such as running a cart or frying pakoras as employed.He questioned the quality of development projects, referring to the Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway and alleging that it had sunk at several places within a month of inauguration.Akash also targeted the Congress and Samajwadi Party, saying both were no different from the BJP. Referring to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi as “Rahul uncle”, he said the Congress presented itself as a defender of the Constitution but behaved like the BJP in states where it was in govt. On SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, whom he described as “Akhilesh uncle”, Akash mocked the party’s PDA slogan and questioned its consistency.Referring to recent student protests over alleged examination paper leaks, Akash said youth had demonstrated that social media alone could not define their generation. “Our generation came onto the streets and forced govt to realise it had done wrong,” he said.Akash alleged that calls to abolish quotas in jobs were part of a campaign to divide young people. “The purpose of reservation is to create an egalitarian society, not merely to remove poverty,” he said.
