Akhilesh Yadav re-elected SP president as 2-day party convention concludes

He congratulated his party’s workers and leaders for ensuring a successful membership drive, which was launched after the party’s defeat in the Vidhan Sabha elections earlier this year.

“Those who want to fulfill the dream of Dr BR Ambedkar are together. The marginalised, oppressed, backward and Dalits have come together and are looking at the Samajwadis,” he said.

“The powers that we need to fight against are using lies. In the history of the country and the world, there has never been a party which has lied so much. Those who have read history must know that Hitler had one propaganda minister. But the way the BJP works, it seems the whole party is running on propaganda,” he said.

“If you check data, you will see that if loans have been waived for anybody, it has been done for Gujarat’s capitalists. Loans to the tune of Rs 10 lakh crore have been waived for the state’s capitalists. No farmer ever got a loan waiver,” said Akhilesh. He asked as why the Central government was discriminating against UP in setting up industries and giving employment to the youth. “What benefits is UP getting? It’s the state that voted for the BJP to power twice,” he said.

Slamming the Centre’s Agnipath scheme, Akhilesh said, “This government has also cheated the army. Temporary jobs under the Agnipath scheme are unacceptable. But due to poverty and unemployment, youths are still applying for these jobs.”

He alleged that the BJP is playing with the reservation granted to the people of the country by the Constitution. “The BJP knows that if youths get an education, they will see through the BJP. And hence, education is being made inaccessible,” said Akhilesh.

The former CM said that the BJP government “is working with planning to send people to jail”.

“We have seen how since the BJP government came to power, (SP leader) Azam Khan is facing injustice. In the state’s political history, there are very few people who have faced so many cases,” he said.

Targeting the Election Commission, Akhilesh said, “We had hoped for justice from the EC. But on the BJP’s directions, they reduced 20,000 votes of Yadavs and Muslims in all the constituencies. If a probe is done it will be found that 20,000 votes were reduced.”

Earlier, Ram Gopal Yadav, SP general secretary and election officer for the convention, announced that Akhilesh was the only candidate for the post. This came a day after Naresh Uttam Patel was re-elected as the state president of the party during the state convention on Wednesday.

This will be Akhilesh’s third term after he took over from his father Mulayam Singh Yadav at an emergency meeting in 2017. He was then re-elected to the post at the party’s national convention in Agra in October that year.