Modi, Akhilesh fire final salvo as high-pitched campaign ends
Microphones fell silent as parties wrapped up their campaign for the seventh and final phase of the elections for the 40 seats spread across seven districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh today. The highlight of this phase was Prime Minister Narendra Modi camping in his Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi for three days along with a large number of his cabinet colleagues. He left for New Delhi this evening. During his stay, he held two roadshows, prayed at the Kashi Vishwanath and Kal Bhairav temples, paid tributes to Hindutva ideologue Madan Mohan Malviya, visited the Garhwa Ghat ashram - a place most revered by the Yadavs where he fed the cows with fodder and “gud” (jaggery) and even paid tributes to former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri at his ancestral house in Ramnagar. He also addressed a string of election meetings. Commenting on PM Modi’s extended stay in Varanasi, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav during an election meeting in Jaunpur today said, “PM ka mann Delhi me kam lag raha hai, UP me zyada. Agar aisa hai to humse kursi adla badli kar lein . (If the PM does not like to stay in Delhi and likes UP more, we can swap places).” At the Parivartan Sankalp rally in Rohaniya, Varanasi, the Prime Minister repeated the BJP’s poll promise of waiver of farmers’ loan during the very first cabinet meeting of the BJP government. Akhilesh countered it at his meetings in Jaunpur by asking why he had not done the same so far in BJP-ruled states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Haryana. Charging the policies of PM Modi causing more deaths of soldiers at the borders, CM Yadav also questioned the Prime Minister’s brand of deshbhakti by asking what he had for the families of the martyrs. “I can say with confidence that my government has given Rs 20 lakh to each widow and Rs 5 lakh to the parents of the martyrs,” he said. Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Yadav also held a series of meetings in Varanasi today in support of the Congress-SP alliance. “Prime Minister Modi is expecting to celebrate a kesariya (saffron) Holi. He doesn’t know that people have decided his Holika dehan even before that,” he quipped. — PTI
