Senior BJP leader Keshav Prasad Maurya, serving as the Deputy Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for the second consecutive term, said that the Bharatiya Janata Party is going to create history by winning all the 80 seats in UP and over 400 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. in country.
,Uttar Pradesh has a police station… eighty out of eighty lotuses have to blossom. (It is BJP’s resolve to win all 80 parliamentary seats in UP),” the deputy chief minister – who holds the portfolio of rural development, overall village development, rural engineering and food processing – said during an exclusive interview with CNN-News18 Said .
Elaborating on burning issues like Prayagraj murder and caste census, the Deputy Chief Minister assured strictest punishment to those accused in the murder of key witness Umesh Pal and termed the Samajwadi Party as ‘Mafia sympathizers’.
Edited excerpts:
The BJP is leaving no stone unturned to ensure the party’s victory in the 14 Lok Sabha seats it lost in the 2019 elections. It has already started the review process and launched a pre-poll campaign called Lok Sabha Pravas Yojana as a part of its Mission 2024. What is your analysis about the upcoming 2024 elections?
Uttar Pradesh saw the biggest alliance in 2019 when Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and Congress formed a grand alliance (mahagathbandhan) against BJP’s Narendra Modi. However, it failed to make any difference as Prime Minister Narendra Modi secured a total vote share of 51.9 percent and won 62 out of 80 seats in UP. Similarly, nothing can change the situation in 2024 as BJP is going to create history by winning all 80 seats in UP and more than 400 seats in the country, electing Modi as the Prime Minister for the third time in a row.
Umesh Pal, a key witness in the 2005 murder of Bahujan Samaj Party MLA Raju Pal, was killed by two gunmen in front of his house in Dhoomanganj area of Prayagraj on February 24. The opposition questioned the police investigation and said the main accused were still absconding.
The murder of Umesh Pal is a matter of concern. Not only Umesh Pal, we also lost two gunners in the attack, in which mafia-turned-politician Ateeq Ahmed, his wife, sons and other accused are there. The matter is being investigated, police are working round the clock on all possible leads. Arrests will be made soon. I assure strictest punishment against the culprits of the daylight murder.
The opposition has accused the BJP of misusing the ‘bulldozer policy’, which it launched to tame the mafia and monitor the law and order situation. sp chief Akhilesh Yadav Recently, on the issue of Prayagraj massacre, he said that the country should be run according to the constitution and not by bulldozers. what do you say to this?
The Samajwadi Party, its leaders and the entire ‘Saifai family’ are mafia sympathizers. This is the reason why Akhilesh Yadav, senior SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav and others feel pain if action is taken against the mafia. He should also feel the pain of the brutal killing of Umesh Pal and his two gunners. ‘SP’s pain is only towards mafia and goons’ (SP is only concerned about mafias and goons).
Akhilesh Yadav termed the Umesh Pal murder case as the failure of the UP government on the law and order front. He said that despite being in power for six years, it has failed to break the mafia nexus running from the jail.
Nobody is perfect. In fact, it is a big challenge for the UP Police to break the nexus that the SP has nurtured during its rule. I must say we are about half way there. We have cleared 75 per cent of the nexus while 25 per cent is still left and will be cleared in the remaining four years of our rule.
Recently, the SP accused the BJP of turning a blind eye to the growing social and economic inequality in UP and demanded a caste census. Initially you were heard supporting the opposition but later backtracked calling SP’s stand a cheap publicity stunt.
I was never in favor of caste census. SP is unnecessarily making an issue. I want to ask the SP government why they did not think of conducting caste census when they were in power. I asked the SP chief how this would benefit the backward castes but he could not give any concrete answer. If Akhilesh Yadav was so concerned about the rights of backward people, he would have appointed someone like me on some important post in his government. If he is equally concerned about the people of backward classes and extremely backward classes, then can he resign from the post of national president of SP to appoint one of them. No, he can only do petty politics.
The BJP government has claimed that the Global Investors Summit (GIS) was a big hit and is now planning to launch a ground-breaking ceremony to make the proposed investments and projects a reality. What efforts are being made?
When we first came to power in 2017, we started working according to the Gujarat model and replicated it in UP under the leadership of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. GIS was part of the same model, which was a huge success. We received investment proposals of more than 33 lakh crores. We have constituted a special committee which is reviewing the proposals and coordinating with the investors to make these projects a reality.
You have a significant portfolio of Rural Development, Holistic Village Development, Rural Engineering and Food Processing. What efforts are being made to boost rural infrastructure and bring development in rural areas of UP?
UP is the largest state where most of the population comes from villages. That’s why this time our focus is on villages. We are currently working on starting basic amenities including proper pucca roads, electricity connection, LPG gas connection, health facilities, employment, construction of toilets, allotment of houses and others. Apart from ‘Roti, Kapda aur Makaan’, we are focusing on all round development of rural Uttar Pradesh. Without the development of the village, neither the development of the state nor the country, (Neither the state nor the country can progress without the development of rural areas).
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