The Samajwadi Party (SP) leader, Akhilesh Yadav, will begin a ‘Samajwadi Vijay Yatra’ today in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, where assembly elections are scheduled for next year. “The ‘Samajwadi Vijay Yatra’ intends to raise public awareness about the BJP government’s corrupt, authoritarian, and oppressive policies and to create true democracy,” the party stated in a statement before the yatra. The SP is using the programme to rally support ahead of the state elections.
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Yadav will ride on a Mercedes bus that has been transformed into a ‘rath,’ with his and party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav’s posters displayed on one side and the other. According to SP, the bus would also include a photograph of party leader Mohammad Azam Khan. The party produced a 17-second video the day before the yatra in which Akhilesh Yadav is seen talking to his father Mulayam Singh Yadav and touching his feet to receive blessings.
According to the Samajwadi Party, the yatra would begin in Kanpur and reach Kanpur Dehat, Jalaun, and Hamirpur in the first two days (October 12 and 13). The yatra would last three months in several phases, Yadav will address a public meeting in each phase, highlighting the failings of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) administration.
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Meanwhile, the BJP claims Akhilesh Yadav is “scared and apprehensive” about accepting that the Uttar Pradesh government is striving towards “a crime-free society, including the eradication of corruption, attachment of offenders’ properties, and state development.”
