SP’s ‘itra wale mitra’ gobbled up UP’s all developmental funds: Yogi Adityanath

Ghaziabad: Referring to the IT raids at official and business premises of various perfume manufacturers, including SP MLC Pushpraj Jain Pammi’s, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday attacked BJP’s key rival party, saying the SP’s “itra wale mitra’ had gobbled up all the money for state’s development.

The Samajwadi Party’s perfume manufacturing friends had devoured all the money during the party’s regime in Uttar Pradesh and the Goddess Laxmi, mured in concrete walls, had to be freed by the BJP, Adityanath said, referring to bundles of notes found stacked between walls during IT raids at business premises of Pammi and other cologne producers.

The chief minister raked up the raids in a poll campaign meeting at Modinagar here during his fifth electioneering tour to Ghaziabad and Meerut, which go to polls along with 58 assembly segments in 11 districts of western UP on February 14 during the first phase of the seven-phase state assembly elections.

The BJP instead used the money for the development of the state which is evident from the construction of 43 lakh houses and 2.61 crores lavatories for the poor, besides a network of expressways, defence corridors, railway lines and other infrastructural projects, he said.

Accusing SP leaders and workers of having gone to quarantine instead of helping people during the Covid pandemic, the chief minister said his party’s double-engine government at the Centre and the state used the money and resources to administer free vaccines to people and to feed the poor.

Referring to the upcoming 600-km Ganga Expressway from Meerut to Prayagraj, Adityanath said the people of the western UP will soon be able to visit Prayagraj within hours, take a holy dip in the Ganga and then return by the night after attending the hearing of their cases in the Allahabad High Court.

The Samajwadi Party’s development projects, however, remained limited to the construction of graveyard walls and the development of cemeteries, he said.