‘Political demolition’: Akhilesh slams Dal Mandi project, demands immediate halt

“Yeh koi development project nahi hai. Yeh political project hai. Political project ko pura karne ke liye, divide and rule ka rasta apna rahein hain (This is not a development project. It is a political project. And for its completion, the government is adopting the route of divide and rule)… They (the BJP government) are doing this because they cannot win in that area. They want to scare people, divide communities,” Akhilesh told mediapersons at a press conference in Lucknow.

Flanked by some of the residents and traders from the Dal Mandi area, the former chief minister alleged that people were being threatened so that they could not voice their problems.

He said many traders, some of whom accompanied him at the press conference, have run small shops for generations and now fear complete loss of livelihood. He pointed out that several businesses in the Dal Mandi are decades old, “some even older than the institutions that now approve building maps”.

Refuting the government’s claim that the road was being widened to “preserve the heritage”, the SP chief said, “This is not a heritage plan… Instead of preserving heritage markets as done in major tourist cities worldwide, the BJP government is destroying them.”

“In many countries, even narrow heritage lanes are protected, not demolished. Here, traders are being uprooted without any alternative that safeguards their customers or livelihoods,” Akhilesh said, adding that instead of doing any exemplary work to turn “Varanasi into Kyoto” as promised, the BJP government is taking up such political projects.

He was referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of turning Varanasi into the Japanese city of Kyoto during election campaigning. Modi has won from the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency for three consecutive terms, beginning 2014.

“Across the world, the governments have preserved history, heritage, and old markets, and have given facilities to traders. If the present BJP government has not seen such places, then we would like to inform them that there are such tourist lanes in other countries, where even if only two people can walk at a time, the government has preserved them because that is what heritage is,” the SP chief said.

The SP chief also slammed the government’s rehabilitation plan for people displaced by the road-widening project. He criticised the proposal of relocating shopkeepers to areas like Lohata or Mohansarai, saying these locations lack footfall.

“On one side, the government talks about development, and on the other, it is taking away the livelihood of traders whose shops have been established for generations. It is thus our demand that this demolition should stop immediately,” Akhilesh added.

At the press conference, several traders, identifying themselves as Rahul Arora, Bhale Yadav, Sajid, and Nilofer Bano, narrated concerns about coercive acquisition, fear of displacement, lack of compensation, and threats allegedly made by officials. They all appealed to the government to withdraw the road widening project and safeguard their livelihoods.

Akhilesh also accused the BJP government of halting previous development initiatives in Varanasi. He claimed that had the SP been in power, metro work in the Prime Minister’s constituency would have progressed, preventing such large-scale demolitions. “They stopped river-cleaning work on the Varuna, they halted traffic planning, and now they are destroying markets. This is narrow-minded politics,” he said.

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