100 days of Yogi Adityanath government have been just disappointing
Saffron-clad Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has very little to boast of on completion of his 100 days in office.
Sworn in on March 19, Adityanath was hoping to furnish a long list of achievements on Tuesday when he convened a press conference. But the abrupt manner in which he chickened out of the press conference displayed his lack of confidence in substantiating his tall claims.
Hundred days may be too short a time to pass a judgement on any government’s functioning. Yet, Yogi chose to go ahead with a self-assessment as CM. And as if to give credibility to his own verdict on his performance in UP, he ensured his 47– member council of ministers were in tow when he held the press conference.
Even before anxiously awaiting scribes could fire the second question to the CM, Adityanath chose to walk away from the sprawling auditorium of the opulent Lok Bhawan, erected as a new complex for the chief minister, at a prohibitive cost of Rs 603 crore, no less.
Interestingly, even though the chief minister had quite enthusiastically convened a press conference, for which invitations were issued well in advance the previous day, Adityanath seemed unprepared to take any questions.
Much like former chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader Mayawati, who always avoided questions at press conferences (she could rarely hide her contempt for the media, with which she generally avoided any kind of interaction), Adityanath too left the audience high and dry.
Incidentally, this was second time in three months that Adityanath had called a press conference. The last one – shortly after being sworn in - was also concluded soon after the first question was posed to him. No sooner had he responded to the first press poser than he repeated his March act.
What surprised observers alike was his turning a deaf ear to echoing appeals from mediapersons seeking to raise various issues.
In keeping with Mayawati’s tradition of long monologues, Yogi too read out a long written statement, highlighting the so-called “achievements” of his 100-day old government. His PR boys had already circulated a skillfully printed booklet on his 100 days in office.
The glossy colourful 48-page booklet titled, “100 din vishwas ke” (100 days of Trust) carrying smiling portraits of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Yogi Adityanath on the cover begins with a commentary on the swearing-in ceremony and ends with a picture of the much-awaited Lucknow Metro speeding away on its tracks.
Evidently, Akhilesh Yadav was not too far off when he took a dig at the Yogi government recently, “Ram naam japna; paraya kaam apna (chant the name of Ram, walk away with the credit for the achievements of another)". The "accomplishment" that is Lucknow Metro was too glaring to ignore.
It is common knowledge that the first phase of the eight-kilometre stretch of Lucknow Metro was completed in record time during the Akhilesh regime with several trial runs, but the Centre held back its clearances for a commercial run simply because it did not want the credit to go to the regime.
Now three months after the SP government, the pending clearances were stated to be coming in.
Interestingly, Yogi talked about building a Purvanchal expressway that was actually initiated by the previous government but cleverly steered clear from mentioning the Lucknow–Agra Expressway that was completed by the Akhilesh Yadav government in record time but continued to have some loose ends ignored by the new regime.
Instead, he promised to build a Bundelkhand expressway to bring the most neglected rocky part of the state on the fast track.
Other highlights in the booklet included Yogi’s announcement to waive agricultural loans of upto Rs 1 lakh for about 86 lakh farmers, the clearance of pending Rs 22,517 crore sugarcane dues, the official procurement of wheat and potato at the prescribed minimum support price, launch of new health support and credit schemes as well as the commitment to improve power supply across the state.
In the absence of any support from the central government, Adityanath hoped to meet the loan waiver by raising a whopping Rs 36,000 crore by cutting down wasteful expenditure.
With little to boast of in the way of the law and order status in the state, the booklet focused only on bare statistics relating to arrest of persons accused in various criminal cases. On the corruption front too, there was precious little that the government could claim to have done over the 100 days, despite Adityanath’s unusually high score on "integrity".
The chief minister did talk proudly of the anti-Romeo squads created by him, but failed to give any details of the action taken against erring cops and self-styled moral police who have harassed couples.
The rising incidents of lynching and harassment of innocent citizens on mere suspicions of carting cattle for slaughter or for the alleged consumption of beef (including the permitted buffalo meat) did not seem to have got Adityanath’s attention.
Despite the roaring rhetoric about stringent action against illegal slaughter houses, following which the entire meat industry stands crippled, there was also no mention of the action against officials involved in extending protection to such slaughter houses.
Government functionaries conniving with petrol pump owners to introduce fuel losses were also not taken to task, with petrol pump owners alone being targeted and jailws for duping consumers.
At the end of 100 days in power, Yogi’s much-touted slogan of “minimum government-maximum governance” also seems to have fallen flat as the official red-tape continues to rule the roost much like other regimes.
The CM’s booklet of “achievements” and “claims” may look impressive in terms of data. But the wide gap between fact and fiction was clearly visible in the CM’s reluctance to entertain questions.