SP bickering over pocketing loot of public money: Amit Shah

Lucknow, Sep 21: Amid the ongoing internal bickering in the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh, BJP President Amit Shah on Wednesday said the power struggle between the 'chacha-bhatija' (Shivpal Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav) was primarily for cornering the loot from the state coffers.

Shah, attending a rally organised by former Bahujan Samaj Party leader Swamy Prasad Maurya who has since joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, said all the central funds sent to the state for welfare schemes and development projects were pocketed by the uncle-nephew duo.

While the Samajwadi Party leadership was busy with infighting, BSP chief Mayawati was selling tickets for the 2017 assembly elections, the BJP chief said.

Both these parties have been ruling the state by turns for the last 15 years but Uttar Pradesh continues to be in bad shape, he added.

Shah exhorted the large gathering of Dalits and Other Backward Classes to come together and vote the BJP to power in Uttar Pradesh for development.

He also ridiculed the ongoing 'Kisan Yatra' of Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi.

The Gandhi family scion should understand that the pitiable condition of farmers in Uttar Pradesh and the country was because of the "kukarm' (wrongdoings) of his ancestors", the BJP leader alleged.

He said that the Congress had been pushed to the fringes of UP politics and was now a 'vote katua' party at best, which would divide the votes to benefit regional parties like the BSP and the SP.

"They have no face to show to the people or even utter a word against the BSP and SP as it was with the support of these two parties that the Congress ran governments at the Centre for two terms," Shah said.

IANS