Four Years Of Yogi Adityanath Government In Uttar Pradesh: Disappointments Galore!
Lucknow, March 19 || The Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is completing four years in power in Uttar Pradesh, politically the most crucial state of the country, other than being the most populated state of India. In retrospect, the government appears to have paltry achievements to show in its report card.
What is even more sad and dismaying is the fact that in its mad lust for power and votes, the ruling party has divided the society on narrow, dangerous and ominous religious lines, so much so that even after they are voted out of power, which I am sure they will be in 2022, it would take a long time to crease out the differences.
The state voted them to power with an overwhelming majority, but as I look back to its four years of rule or rather misrule, they have almost nothing to show up. Crimes against women are shooting through the roof, joblessness is at an unprecedented level, farmers are a frustrated lot with piling up sugarcane arrears and pending promises, which they have almost given up on and are ruing the fact that they chose to vote for the lotus!
According to a report released by the Uttar Pradesh Department of Cane Development and Sugar Industry, the mills, till the end of season, owed a staggering Rs 8,000 crore of payments to farmers against cane supplies made during 2019-20.
Hundreds of farmers have been martyred during their ongoing protests on the borders of the union capital but rather than being sympathetic towards their cause and engaging into a dialogue the state government sought to torture them and slap cases on them!
Uttar Pradesh's unemployment rate increased 11.4 percentage points, rising to 21.5% in Apr 2020, according to a survey conducted by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Over a longer time period, unemployment has moved from 2.1% in Jul 2017 to its current rate.
Government has not been able to fill vacancies and for one reason or the others, the jobs that were up for filling have come under shroud for various technical and other flaws. Is it not for the government to fix responsibilities and get the vacancies filled?
The chief minister must understand that making promises and doling out incorrect data and stats does not alter the ground realities. Sample this: In 2019, UP alone accounted for nearly 15% of all registered crimes against women in India. With 59,853 registered cases, the state saw 164 such crimes, on average, every day.
The chief minister talks of various woman security schemes but he should go and have a fact check on the ground and the findings are set to hit him on the face. Incidents in Baghpat and Unnao, to name just two, shook the conscious of the nation but the state government was unmoved.
Only recently, a former lawmaker of the ruling party made startling allegations against his own government and that too on the party forum. He accused police stations of becoming centres of loot and corruption and warned the powers that be of the breeding graft across the government departments. So what has changed in four years? Nothing if you ask me. Fake encounters by the police have also drawn the attention of the Supreme Court.
From bad to worse, is what we all as people of Uttar Pradesh are faced with. Claims, more claims and even bigger claims. In truth they are lies, more lies and even bigger lies!! The common people are faced with unprecedented hike in LPG, fuel prices, commodities of daily use and even as their own domestic budgets have gone haywire, the chief minister doesn't stop claims of UP becoming a multi-trillion dollar economy.
Wake up Mr Chief Minister, elections are round he corner and time has come for you to face the wrath of the very people, who voted you to power and now who will boot you out of the same corridors of power too!
(The writer is a two-time legislator and the leader of the Congress Legislature Party In The UP Assembly. Views Expressed Are Personal)