JOIN USBJP looks to Modi to sweep Uttar Pradesh in 2024, Akhilesh says saffron party may draw a blank
The next general elections may still be over a year away but the main political players in Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha, BJP and the Samajwadi Party (SP) have already started trading barbs and taking swipes at each other.
BJP on Sunday indicated that it banked almost solely on prime minister Narendra Modi, who himself represented Varanasi in the LS, to deliver in 2024 like 2014 and 2019, when the saffron party had swept the state.
''Modi hai to mumkin hai (everything possible if there is Modi) has today become the slogan of the world,'' UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath said while speaking at the meeting of the BJP state executive committee which began here on Sunday.
Adityanath listed the achievements of the BJP government at the centre under Modi and said that the presidency of the G-20 and the growing economy of the country indicated that under Modi everything was possible.
State BJP president Bhupendra Chaudhary said that the saffron party would win all the 80 seats in UP in the next general elections. SP president Akhilesh Yadav, however, pooh-poohed BJP's claim and said that it was possible that the saffron party could lose all the seats in the state in 2024.
''BJP is only working for the benefit of the industrialists.....it is expediting privatisation.....rising prices have made life difficult for the common people,'' Akhilesh told reporters here on Sunday.
Akhilesh referred to the increasing incidents of custodial deaths and said that the BJP leaders should visit the medical colleges to ascertain the facts in this regard. ''They will then realise how many seats they are going to win in 2024,'' he added.
The SP president said that the saffron party might draw a blank in the state in the next general elections. ''BJP's days are counted...now only 398 days are left,'' he remarked.