Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on February 21 that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections with a thumping majority.
“The BJP will win with full majority. Under the leadership of Yogi Adityanath, the BJP has been successful in winning the hearts of the people. Support and love for the Prime Minister is much higher today than it was in December 2013. This the feeling on the ground,” Shah said in an exclusive interview to Network18 Group Editor-in-Chief Rahul Joshi.
Shah’s remarks came at a time when 172 of the 403 seats in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly have voted in first three phases of elections. The remaining seats will go to polls in four phases till March 7, while the results will be out on March 10.
The ruling BJP faces a steep challenge from Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh. In the last Assembly polls, the BJP had secured a three-fourths majority and made its firebrand leader Yogi Adityanath the chief minister. The incumbent SP won 47 seats, while the Congress party only seven.
The "dynasticism, religionism, and appeasement" politics has ended since Prime Minister Modi took charge and that the politics of performance is being practiced.
“Earlier, one government (UP) used to work for one caste and another for another caste. When SP was there, people from a particular religion were given a free hand, cattle were taken from farmers’ houses and they were not able to do anything. But now, Azam Khan, Atiq Ahmed and Mukhtar Ansari like people are in prison. Government properties worth Rs 2,000 crore have been freed from the mafia. I have seen girls on scooty in Kanpur at midnight. UP is that safe now,” Shah said.
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The economy of the state has also improved in the past five years and the BJP will make it the top performing state in two years if it's back to power. “After 15 years of SP-BSP rule in UP, the economy was at 8th-9th position. In five years, we made it reach the second spot. And we’ll make it No 1 within two years of formation of the next BJP government,” he said.
“From the 14th spot, UP is now No 2 in ease-of-doing-business,” the home minister said, adding that the state GDP is now almost double of what it was in previous regime. “People are going to elect whoever perform,” Shah summed up.
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