Akhilesh takes swipe at UP CM, cabinet colleagues' proposed foreign trip to attract investment

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday took a jibe at the proposed foreign visit by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his cabinet colleagues to attract investment, alleging they were trying to “sell colourful dreams” to people after failing to get any investment since coming to power.

He said the BJP government is taking the cabinet on the foreign tour to mask its failing reputation.

The chief minister and some of his cabinet colleagues are all set to embark on an overseas tour to hold roadshows in 26 cities across 20 countries in run-up to the Uttar Pradesh Global Investors Summit proposed to be held in February 2023.

“When the BJP government failed to bring any investment in Uttar Pradesh despite all its efforts, it is engaging in selling people colourful dreams of foreign lands to mislead them,” Yadav said in a statement here. He said the BJP has been in power in the state for more than five years and held several investors summits. “But the result has been zero.” “People are asking when industrialists from within the country are not coming to Uttar Pradesh then which industrialist will come from faraway lands,” the former chief minister said.

Yadav said besides BJP ministers, over two dozen IAS officers of the state will be visiting 20 countries on huge expenses “and there is no guarantee they will get investment to match even that”.

“Is it a conspiracy to destroy even whatever is left of the trade and business in Uttar Pradesh?” he wondered.

He said as the BJP government failed to get any investment in the state it is taking credit of work done by the Samajwadi Party dispensation.

He also took a swipe at the BJP ideological fountainhead — the RSS.

“Now that the BJP government is going on a foreign visit, they might as well propagate the Swadeshi agenda of its mother organisation RSS,” he said.