Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Dec 7: With the Samajwadi Party emerging the biggest challenger to the BJP in its run for retaining power in Uttar Pradesh, the prime minister Narendra Modi sharpened his attacks on the SP’s “Red Caps” likening it with “red alert” for the people of the state. “The people with red caps are only interested in ‘red light’ beacons in the cars symbolizing power and not bothered about the welfare of the people,” Modi told a gathering on Tuesday at Gorakhpur, the home of the UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath.
The SP supremo and former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav was quick to retort. “The red alert for the BJP is over rising prices, unemployment, the bad condition of farmers and labourers; Over Hathras, Lakhimpur and harassment of women and youth. A destroyed education system, trade and health and also over the ‘red cap’ that will throw them out of power this time,” his said in a Hindi tweet.
Yadav has become a target of increasing BJP attacks as his rallies draw record crowds. His trademark red cap became the bullseye for Modi, who described it at a “danger signal” and “red alert” at an official event , and even suggested that the Samajwadi party sympathized with terrorists.
Speaking at a state function in Gorakhpur, Modi said, “The whole of UP knows that “laal topi waalon” (the red caps) are only interested in red lights,” referring to the red beacons on top of government vehicles that have come to symbolize power and VIP status.
“These people only need power for scams, for encroachment, to give a free run to mafias. The red caps want to form the government to get terrorists released from jail… The red caps are red alerts for Uttar Pradesh… the danger alarm,” he added in his address at the inauguration of a revived fertilizer factory and a fully functional AIIMS.
Stepping up his attack on the rival ahead of the assembly polls early next year, Modi said, “The red cap people want to form government to show favour to terrorists and to free them from jail. Hence, you should remember that those wearing red caps are red alert for UP, in other words alarm bells.” Red cap is a trademark of Samajwadi Party leaders as well as workers.
Modi dedicated to the nation three mega projects — an AIIMS, a major fertiliser plant and a Regional Medical Research Centre of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). The big-ticket projects are worth over Rs 9,600 crore.
The Gorakhpur AIIMS, built at a cost of Rs 1,011 crore, will benefit not only the people of eastern Uttar Pradesh but also a huge population of Bihar, Jharkhand and Nepal with its world-class health facilities, officials said. Similarly, the regional medical research centre set up at a cost of Rs 36 crore will facilitate the test and research of vector-borne diseases, they added.
The high-tech lab will decrease the dependency of the area on big cities for tests related to vector-borne diseases. The inauguration of the three big projects comes just months ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
The Prime Minister had started by taking on the earlier governments of the state, accusing them of being two-faced. “They knew how important the Gorakhpur fertilizer plant was for this area. But they showed no interest in restarting them. Those running the government before 2017 made all kinds of excuses in allotting land for the AIIMS,” he said.
This, he pointedly said, was a “sound reply to those people who like raising issues on timing” — in reference to Yadav’s allegations of the BJP-led government taking credit for expressways and highways that started in his tenure. “When such projects get completed, it takes years of labour,” Modi said. “These people will not understand that even in the times of Covid, our government kept on doing development works. These people have long forgotten the ideals of Ram Manohar Lohia,” (the leader of the socialist movement), he added.
Then he scaled up the attack, referring to the Samajwadi Party chief and his supporters as “lal topiwallahs”. Citing the “double engine” BJP government in the state, Modi said, “Today all mafias are in jail and investors are coming to UP whole heartedly… The start of the fertilizer plant and the AIIMS shows that when there is a ‘double engine ki sarkar’ then work happens at double pace. When there is a government that thinks about the poor, its work reflects that concern.”
In quick response to the BJP’s charges against his government, Yadav has repeatedly accused the BJP government at the centre of stunting UP’s growth. “Had the Centre passed the proposal of Firozabad airport during the Samajwadi Party rule, the development in Uttar Pradesh would have progressed towards perfection, he said.
With his ally Jayant Choudhary at his side at a rally in Mathura, Akhilesh Yadav ripped the Yogi Adityanath’s government apart ridiculing the BJP’s claims of “development.” They also ‘predicted’ that the BJP which swept to power in 2017 with 312 seats in the 403-member state Assembly, “might be wiped out from UP” this time losing all the 400 odd seats it is likely to contest. “Looking at anger among the people, BJP can even lose 400 seats. They will be wiped out in the western UP,” Akhilesh Yadav said.
The two leaders ripped apart the BJP claims of development, which the ruling party placed front and centre of the coming election. Yadav, who has lately accused the BJP of stealing credit for projects that started during the Samajwadi Party rule, cited a recent headline from Bijnore that has raised many a chuckle in the state. “The older tradition was — hit the coconut on the road and the coconut breaks. The new tradition they have started is hit the coconut on ground and the ground must break,” Yadav said.
Yadav had spoken of the BJP “misrule” in terms of jobs, education development and farmers’ issues. Asked about his remark that the “Baba (Yogi Adityanath) just sits in Gorakhpur and rings a bell (while all this is happennig),” and how it would be received by the state’s Hindu voters, Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Jayant Chaudhary spoke up.
“Adityanath is not a symbol of Hindu unity, he can be questioned,” Chaudhary said. “This is not an issue about Hindu pride but issues like unemployment. Adityanath said he will give 70 lakh jobs. Today, their own posters say they have given only four lakh jobs,” he added. Akhilesh Yadav had other questions. “The Chief Minister should answer whether the man sitting in the jeep that mowed down farmers (in Lakhimpur Kheri) was the Union Home Minister’s son or not… Yogi must answer how many cases were against him that he removed himself after becoming the Chief Minister,” he added.