BJP's Vrindavan corridor is ‘astha ka vyapar': Akhilesh
2
Lucknow: Describing BJP govt's proposed corridor in Vrindavan as Astha Ka Vyapar (trade of faith), Samajwadi Party chief
Akhilesh Yadav
on Monday said it is aimed at usurping land for a select few and taking donations from them in return.
Akhilesh claimed the corridor will destroy the legacy Vridanvan's Kunj Galiyan (narrow bylanes) which find mention in bhajans, songs and folklores of Premlila of Radha and Krishna and added that BJP wants to destroy these structures of historical importance.
The SP chief said acquisition of buildings in the name of widening of approach roads to Banke Bihari temple to do away with stampede-like situations was a sham.
"Crowd control is essentially about management and has hardly much to do with the width of the road. If wide roads could do away with stampedes, then the Kumbh in Prayagraj had all the space and still why did the stampede occur," Akhilesh said.
Akhilesh pointed out that roads leading to Shree Gundicha temple in Puri in Odisha are quite wide but still a stampede occurred there during the ongoing Rath Yatra. "It is not about the width of lanes and bylanes.
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It is about how the crowd movement is managed," he said.
"Widening of roads and corridors is only a cover. BJP wants to acquire land at throw away prices, give it away to people close to it who will then sell it to commercial establishments for 10 times the purchase price. These are the people who then return the favour in the form of donations," the former CM said.
Backs Gadkari on income disparity
It's true that only 1% of India's population owns 60% of country's wealth and resources, said Akhilesh Yadav, adding that Union minister Nitin Gadkari had rightly made a statement to this effect recently.
"He (Gadkari) knows how the govt is functioning, so he made this statement and rightly so," Akhilesh said.
'Atal e-way nixed as it benefitted Etawah'
Akhilesh Yadav accused the BJP of having shelved the 404km-long Chambal Expressway, also known as the Atal Progressway, merely because it would have benefited Etawah — a stronghold of the Samajwadi Party. "The six-lane expressway was to connect UP with Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh starting from Atalji's village of Bateshwar near Etawah. Only because the highway would have benefited Etawah, the project has been shelved despite that all three states involved have BJP govs.
This is the extent to which the BJP respects one of its tallest leaders," Akhilesh said.
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