Lucknow: In a riposte to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘cycle of corruption’ barb directed at the previous SP government in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav mocked Tuesday the BJP’s election symbol ‘lotus’ by calling it the ‘flower of loot’.
Yadav, in a tweet in Hindi, said, “Earlier, thousands of crores of rupees were put in the bank accounts of the poor by previous governments, but now the ‘flower of lies’ is deceiving people round the clock by becoming the ‘flower of loot’.
“Today, the priority of the BJP government at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh is to pickpocket the poor and snatch the basic facilities,” the former chief minister stated.
Yadav’s remarks came a day after Modi had accused the previous government in UP of neglecting health facilities in Uttar Pradesh and only ‘filling its coffer’.
Modi picked on the previous Samajwadi Party government in Uttar Pradesh – not mentioning Yadav’s party by name but mocking its election symbol, a bicycle.
“Corruption in medicines, ambulances, appointments, transfers and postings. In this entire game, some dynasts in UP flourished,” Modi had said. “The cycle of corruption ran 24 hours but the ordinary families in Purvanchal and UP got crushed,” Modi added.
A few hours later, Yadav accused the BJP government of launching projects when the election was only months away. “The BJP is feeding the flower of lies in the quagmire of deceit,” he had said while hitting out at the saffron party.
The SP chief tweeted a picture of a hoarding Tuesday featuring him with a slogan ‘main aa raha hun’ (I am coming back). Yadav who launched ‘Samajik Parivartan Yatra’ early this month has been claiming that the party along with its some regional allies would throw the BJP out of power in the 2022 Assembly elections.