LUCKNOW: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) got a massive victory in Uttar Pradesh for a second consecutive term because people had started fearing the Samajwadi Party activists who threatened people and engaged in hooliganism openly, Union Minister Kaushal Kishore said on Friday.
Speaking to The New Indian here, Kishore said Akhilesh Yadav’s party will meet the fate of the Bahujan Samaj Party in the next state elections, a reference to annihilation of former chief minister Mayawati’s party which won just one seat in this election and saw its vote share falling to 12.88 per cent.
He said the vote bank of the Samajwadi Party will shift to the BJP by 2027.
“Even before the polling, the people of the state had started fearing the Samajwadi Party because its workers were acting like hooligans and had started threatening people. Reports of their workers engaging in fights and abusing people and administrative officials at several places had emerged,” he said.
Taking a jibe at the Samajwadi Party, the BJP leader said, “They (Samajwadi Party) never worked for the common people. They worked only for a particular community.
Highlighting the achievements of the BJP government in the last five years, he said that it was the Yogi Adityanath government which gave pucca homes to poor, built toilets and gave benefits of several other schemes, including free ration.
“These are the reasons why people voted for a government which brought rule of law in the state and gave us huge mandate to form the government once again,” Kishore said.
Responding to a question on the apparent failure of caste equations of regional parties like the the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party, he said, “BSP was formed to fulfill the mission of Dr BR Ambedkar. It formed government in the state for four times but she (Mayawati) failed to fulfill the dreams of Dr Ambedkar, which has now been done by the BJP government.”
“Similarly, the Samajwadi Party was formed to take forward the ideology of socialist leader (Ram Manohar) Lohia but they too did not work in that direction. It was BJP who worked. We provided ration, medicines and other facilities under several schemes and people reposed their faith in the BJP. They left their parties and voted for the party,” he said.
When pointed at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath mentioning nationalism in his victory speech and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi echoing the same, the Union Minister said, “The entire world is watching India closely. PM Modi ensured evacuation of our people from war-torn Ukraine. Even Pakistani citizens took our flag to travel safely when their Prime Minister Imran Khan failed to them them home.”
He said the prime minister is working hard to make India strong in the world.
To a question on Akhilesh Yadav saying that his party stopped the saffron party from a huge victory in this election, he said: “The Samajwadi Party is going to be on last place in Uttar Pradesh in 2027 assembly polls and their condition will be same as that of the BSP.”
He said that many people have started saying that a person (Akhilesh Yadav) who cannot be honest even to his father cannot be trusted.
“Akhilesh Yadav snatched the post of Samajwadi Party chief from Mulayam Singh Yadav and did not give him any power to select any candidate. Similarly, he also cheated his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav and gave him only one ticket. So people will not go with those who backstabbed,” he added.
The BJP won 255 out of 403 seats in Uttar Pradesh while the Samajwadi Party managed to secure victory on 111 seats. Congress has won two seats.