Akhilesh Yadav mocks ‘Modi’s guarantee’, says it’s like ‘ghanti’ rung during Covid

LUCKNOW, (PTI): Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday mocked the BJP’s ”Modi ki guarantee” slogan and said it was nothing but a ”ghanti” (bell) which the people were asked to ring during Covid.

Yadav accused the ruling BJP of capturing the constitutional institutions of the country and said he has ”faith” in the Election Commission but not in the ruling party. On leaders of various parties joining the BJP, he alleged that the BJP put pressure for their joining.

Describing the BJP’s ”Modi’s guarantee” as a ”ghanti”, he said the candidates who are agitating for jobs in the state should take a pledge to ring the ”ghanti” of these guarantees by voting against the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.

Speaking to reporters here at the party office, the SP chief, while replying to a question on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ”guarantee”, said, ”The BJP, which did not give guarantee of anything, is not giving the same in election time.” Rhyming ‘ghanti’ with ”guarantee”, he said, ”In reality, it is the same ghanti which was given to the people during the Covid period.” He was apparently referring to the prime minister’s address to the nation in March 2020 lauding the hard work of medical professionals, sanitation staff, airline crews, delivery persons and media personnel among others, and asking the people to express gratitude to them by giving them a five-minute standing ovation by clapping hands, beating plates or ringing bells.

”Neither ”jumle” (rhetoric) were fulfilled nor the guarantees will be,” Yadav said.

He accused the Election Commission of not taking any action on the SP’s complaints of wrongly ”deleting” the names of the SP supporters from the voters’ lists.

He alleged that 18,000 names of SP supporters were deleted from the voters’ list and added that a list regarding the same was handed over to the EC but nothing was done.

Replying to a question about the EC, he said, ”I have faith in the commission, but not in the BJP which weakens the institutions and uses them. It is doing injustice with their help.

”It is the responsibility of any government to ensure that constitutional institutions do not get weak. The stronger the institutions, the more empowered our democracy will be,” he said.

He alleged that the Uttar Pradesh government has continuously failed to fill the vacancies in the government. Recruitment has failed to take place due to paper leaks, he said.

”The future of 60 lakh youth of the state is in darkness and if they and their families turn against the BJP, it will be wiped out from the state and also the country,” he said.

The SP president said if two members of the families of these 60 lakh children are also included as voters, then there would be 1.8 crore votes. If this number is divided by 80 (the number of Lok Sabha seats), then the BJP’s votes will be reduced by 2.25 lakh in every parliamentary constituency,” he said, giving his calculations.

He said the candidates who were agitating for jobs in UP should now go home and take a pledge to vote against the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections.

On electoral bonds, he said, ”No one in the history of the world would have made such a ‘vasuli’ (extortion) as the BJP government and its leaders have done. The ED, the CBI and the Income Tax Department have been misused to extort donations. Such recovery might not have happened in any other democratic country in the world.” The SP chief said he considers electoral bonds as ”extortion through intimidation”.

“How will the BJP respond to this? These (BJP) people used to humiliate others by conducting ED, CBI and Income Tax raids on them. Today a list has come to the fore showing how much has been extorted from whom. Rules have been donations but not for extortion,” he said.

On a question whether the SP would demand a CBI probe into the electoral bond case, Yadav said, ”Whatever will be done now, only the people will do. Only the people can save democracy.” (PTI)