SP the most liberal party, you can take selfie with me: Akhilesh Yadav

Lucknow, Jan 14: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday took potshots at BSP supremo Mayawati for cancelling ticket of her party candidate for uploading a picture on Facebook, saying in his party, anyone can click a selfie with him as SP was the "most liberal party".

"You (workers) know what happened to a candidate for uploading a picture on the social site. It is only in Samajwadi Party (SP), where you can click a selfie with me," Akhilesh said while addressing a programme at Janeshwar Mishra Park here.

He also said SP was the most democratic and liberal party. BSP had yesterday cancelled the ticket of its Atrauli seat candidate for the 2017 Assembly polls Sangeeta Chowdhury on grounds of indiscipline, after she posted a picture on Facebook in which she and her children were seen touching the feet of party supremo Mayawati.

The post apparently miffed Mayawati which resulted in the cancellation of Chowdhury's ticket.

Sangeeta's husband, Dharmendra Chowdhury was the candidate from Atrauli, but he was murdered in January 2015. In an apparent reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Akhilesh also took a dig at him saying the BJP has spread a new disease of clicking selfies.

He asked the workers to start preparation for the next year's Assembly polls, saying "all elections, like panchayat and all are over...only one election is left, that is of 2017 Assembly polls, start preparing from now as the opposition does not know from where to contest."

The UP CM claimed that the opposition has no agenda of development, "if they have, they should tell the people." He also counted the achievements of the SP government.

"We have fulfilled all the promises made in our election manifesto. I can say for sure that no other state has been able to do so," he said.

Akhilesh said in UP welfare schemes have been launched for every section of the society. Whether it was expressway, metro or cycle track to make the cities pollution free, he said, the SP government was working in all directions.

PTI