by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Ayodhya : Union Minister Uma Bharti on Tuesday joined the growing chorus for an early construction of a grand Ram temple here, saying she expected Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to “take a bold step”.
Talking to reporters after praying at the Hanumangarhi temple and the Ram Janmabhoomi, the saffron robed BJP leader however clarified that while she was for an early construction of the temple, she will not set any deadline for the same. “I hope that an early decision is taken in the direction of realizing this national dream but will not set a timetable,” she said.
Uma Bharti also said that millions of people had sacrificed a lot for the temple and pointed out that the court has also said that what was being considered a disputed land was indeed the birthplace of Lord Rama. Now it is just a matter of deciding on ownership of the land, she added further.
One of the accused in the Babri demolition case of 1992, she also requested the media and other sections of the society not to link the construction of the Ram temple with the 2019 general elections, adding that the Ram temple will be a “precious heritage” for the generations to come.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Economy, Emerging Businesses, Investing, Markets, News, Technology
Lucknow : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday inaugurated a first-of-its-kind, hi-tech Rs 232 crore bus terminal here and announced that 21 more bus stations and bus shelters across the state will be spruced up in coming days.
As a token start to the bus services from the Alambagh bus terminal, he also flagged off two buses to the Swami Narayan temple in Ayodhya.
Buses for commuters will be thrown open from Wednesday when, under the first phase, 395 air-conditioned buses will start plying from this bus terminal.
Officials said buses for Gorakhpur (30), Varanasi (14), 94 luxury buses for Delhi and Agra as well as normal service buses (306) for Varanasi, Allahabad, Jhans, Hardoi and Etawah will ply from this terminal.
Speaking on the occasion, Adityanath said his government had made travel free for differently abled on any state-owned bus running anywhere in the country and have also made travel on the festival of ‘Raksha Bandhan’ free for girls and women of Uttar Pradesh.
Work on the bus terminal started in 2012 during the Samajwadi Party (SP) regime and party workers inaugurated the terminal symbolically late on Monday, having accused the ruling BJP of trying to hijack the good work done by the Akhilesh Yadav government.
The terminal is linked with Metro services, has five lifts and has a shopping mall, an official told IANS. It has an air-conditioned food court, a theatre, ATMs, an AC waiting room, luggage scanners and a passenger capacity of 25,000 at a given time.
Other than the facility of parking 50 buses on the ground level, there will be space to park 50 buses in an underground parking.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Mohit Dubey,
Lucknow : Is Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath — in power for just over a year — fast losing his lustre?
Many here feel so.
A litany of complaints about his public conduct, his behaviour with colleagues as well as common people is fast eroding the aura he had built up as the five-time Lok Sabha MP from Gorakhpur who was catapulted to the Chief Minister’s office of a socially diverse and politically volatile state of 220 million people.
Last week, 24-year-old Ayush Bansal shocked many when he broke down in front of media in Gorakhpur and disclosed how the monk-turned-Chief Minister mocked him during a “junta darbaar” where he had gone to complain about a land-grab case in which independent legislator from Nautanwa, Amanmani Tripathi, was involved.
He also accused the Chief Minister of calling him “awaraa” (wayward) and pushing him while throwing his file in the air. “Maharaj ji angrily snapped at me and said my work will never be done and that I should get out of his sight,” Bansal told IANS.
While officials got down to damage control and said the matter was being looked into, the fact that Adityanath behaved in a manner unbecoming of a Chief Minister was neither contradicted by officials nor denied by the ruling party.
Barely had the din over this episode died down when two MPs of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) complained of similar behaviour. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP MP from Robertsganj Chhote Lal Kharwar, accused Adityanath of “scolding him and asking him to get out”. The MP said he was deeply pained at the behavior of the Chief Minister as he tried to draw his attention to issues faced by the party faithful.
“Never did the local administration listen to my plaints and when I went to meet the Chief Minister twice over many issues, ‘unhone mujhe daantkar bhaga diya‘ (he scolded me and chased me away),” the lawmaker said in his letter.
The BJP leader has also shot off a letter to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, seeking help. Lal also says that definite proof of wrong-doing and corruption presented by him went unheard and unaddressed.
What is surprising is that all this happened to a man who is the state president of the BJP’s SC/ST Morcha.
While Modi is learnt to have assured Lal of action, there are other similar murmurs about Adityanath’s rough behaviour. Etawah MP Ashok Dohre has also written to Modi accusing the state police of lodging fake cases against SCs and STs during the Bharat Bandh. When asked why he did not petition the Chief Minister, Dohre said he considered Modi his leader, and thus petitioned him.
Alarmed by the sudden “unease” among the party’s lawmakers, Amit Shah summoned Yogi to New Delhi over the weekend and is learnt to have asked him to mend his ways. Adityanth also met Modi. Interestingly, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, who party insiders admit doesn’t see eye to eye with Yogi, was also called to Delhi at the same time.
Ironically, till not long ago, the 45-year-old Chief Minister was being venerated by the party faithful as a man next only to Modi. Insiders, however, now admit that not only has Adityanath failed to show his “pakad” (hold) on the party, but is also “awkwardly arrogant in his public conduct”, and not very able in his administration.
“He may be a busy man, so have been his predecessors… he remains inaccessible and uses foul and unacceptable language at times,” conceded a senior minister who did not wish to be named. Though stopping short of calling the Chief Minister arrogant, he suggested that “Yogi-ji is better advised to be more courteous and improve his time management”.
A senior party functionary too noted “the changing ways of Maharaj-ji”, though he felt “mood swings and the tongue-lashings could be because he has to handle a big state like Uttar Pradesh”.
A senior bureaucrat also alleged that the Chief Minister often “goes off the handle” and could be very acerbic in his dealing with officials.
The Chief Minister’s loyalists, however, point out that he does not like people to hang around him and wants officials to deliver fast and work within the system that has been set up. When there is any breach, he loses his temper, a close aide told IANS.
His failure to deliver on his promise to get all pot-holed roads fixed by a given deadline last year; the rollback — under pressure — in privatisation of the power sector in five cities; the poor showing in the Phulpur and Gorakhpur Lok Sabha by-polls and reports that he and his deputy, Keshav Prasad Maurya, don’t get along well have already rung alarm bells in the establishment, sources said.
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Mohit Dubey,
Lucknow : As the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government completed one year in power in India’s most populous state, the jury is still out on its performance.
While the party stormed back to power with a brute majority after 14 years in power, its loss in the recent bypolls to seats earlier held by the Chief Minister and his deputy have taken off some sheen from their celebration.
Adityanath and his team say that the government has done what was never even conceived of in the last decade and a half of the rule of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP), which according to him bequeathed “empty coffers, a state where criminals were having a free run and the bureaucracy was non-performing”.
The saffron-clad monk-politician stresses he has been working 18 hours a day to bring back on track the state, which he says, had been turned ‘bimaru’ by political powers who “never looked beyond gains for self, the party and their own families”.
The 45-year-old, who was picked to head the government by his Bharatiya Janata Party’s national leadership despite his hardcore Hindutva credentials, is still caustic in his public speeches against his rivals and openly brandishes his Hindu image that has won him support from many in the community in and outside the state but who raises suspicion in the minds of the minority.
Soon after taking over the reins of the state on March 19, 2017, Aditynanath, who is the sitting priest of the Gorakshnath Peeth in Gorakhpur, ordered a crackdown on the “illegal slaughterhouses in the state”, triggering a tizzy in the butcher community among the Muslims.
Hundreds of slaughter houses were closed down within days as raids were conducted by municipal bodies, who had incidentally certified their operations earlier.
Adityanath is unapologetic about his pro-Hindu image and has, apart from his public speeches and media interactions, brandished it on the floor of the UP assembly, saying he is proud to be a Hindu and will never celebrate Eid.
“I will however allow every community to celebrate their festivals if they want to do so peacefully,” he told the assembly, to the criticism from the opposition benches.
Leader of Opposition Ram Govind Chowdhary, of the Samajwadi Party, accuses Adityanath of behaving as if the opposition were terrorists.
Other than his tough language and image, the Chief Minister has also been the target of opposition attack for his frequent visits (almost weekly) to his temple in Gorakhpur with many of them alleging that his interest still seems to be propitiating gods than serving the people.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati who vanquished the BJP candidates in Phulpur and Gorakhpur by tactically and smartly extending her party’s vote to arch rival Samajwadi Party, says there is no reason for the BJP to celebrate its one-year rule as in the period, it had destroyed the social and communal fabric of the state.
“How can they celebrate when they have not achieved anything. The by polls results have emphatically shown that the people have given them a big zero for the one year report card,” she said in a statement. She further accuses Adityanath of being only busy with “puja-paath” whereas the biggest dharma was serving people.
Akhilesh Yadav too gives a thumbs down to the BJP government. “The only thing the Chief Minister and his government have done in the past one year is to remove names of the Samajwadi Party from government schemes”. He also slams the language used by Adityanath.
Aam Aadmi party (SSP) spokesman Vaibhav Maheshwari slams the Adityanath government by saying that “it still has not got out of the ‘jumlebaazi’ mode propounded by BJP chief Amit Shah”.
Ajay Kumar ‘Lallu’, leader of the Congress legislature party in the assembly, termed it a “failed and eye wash government” which is trying to mislead people by tall promises to hide their failures. “The farmers are on the brink, youth yet to get employment, power tariffs are up drastically…what have they done except fish out new tricks to befool people” he said.
State Health Minister and government spokesman Siddhartha Nath Singh, however trashed the allegations of the opposition and told IANS that they were shaken with the “path-breaking work” down by the government”. “We have constructed 37 lakh toilets for the poor, waived off loans worth Rs 36,000 crore of 86 lakh farmers, hounded out criminals. brought the health and education sector back on tracks, investors are making beeline to invest in the state…if this is not progress, what is?” he asks.
(Mohit Dubey can be contacted at mohit.d@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business Summit, Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Corporate Governance, Economy, Events, Investing, News, Politics
Lucknow : Industry captains heaped wholesome praise on the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for bringing a turn around in the state’s environment within a year as they committed to investments of over Rs 4.35 lakh crore over the next three years on the first day of the Investors Summit here on Wednesday.
A visibly-elated Adityanath announced at the inaugural session of the two-day summit that more than 1,200 MoUs had been signed with a total amount which was almost equal to the state’s budget for 2018-19.
In his address, he said that he was happy that the investors had taken note of the transformational changes in the state and were willing to partner the growth story that had been set rolling by the BJP government in the last 11 months. He also assured the investors that his government had taken their safety and security on top priority and had done a lot to turn around the law and order situation.
Adityanath assured that all the MoUs that have been signed would be followed up seriously and it would be ensured that the facilities offered to them were adhered to in full and that they have no problems in setting up industries in the state. He also said that a a cell has set up to follow up on the investment promises and that he would personally monitor them on a case to case basis.
In his address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that his government will establish a Rs 20,000-crore defence industrial production corridor in Bundelkhand — a region divided between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh — that will generate 250,000 jobs and bring development to one of the most impoverished regions of the country.
Stressing that Uttar Pradesh had a vast potential for development but needed policy, planning, and performance, he lauded the efforts of Adityanath for setting the state on the path to give a “super hit” performance.
Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani too praised the Chief Minister whom he called him a “karma yogi” while many others like Adani Group chief Gautam Adani, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrashekharan, Apollo Hospitals Vice Chairperson Shobana Kamineni, Essel Group Chairman Subhash Chandra, Mahindra and Mahindra Chairman Anand Mahindra also complimented him for “setting things right enough” to set pace for more investment in the state.
Adani announced that his company would invest more than Rs 35,000 crore for projects including a 1,000 MW solar plant, developing a storage capacity of 6 lakh tonnes, multi-model logistics parks, 5,000 MW solar parks, world class food and agri-complexes and a world class multi-disciplinary university and skill development center in Noida.
Kumarmangalam Birla of the Aditya Birla Group said UP was set for its front ranking place in the nation with the “hallmark leadership style of Yogi”. “I am impressed by the inexhaustible energy of the Chief Minister… am very bullish about the prospects of UP under him” he said while committing Rs 25,000 crore for the state in the next five years.
Mahindra reminisced about his mother’s early life in Allahabad and then as a history teacher at IT College in Lucknow, saying his visit was like a “home coming”.
He also thanked the Chief Minister for his promising ideas and announced that if the spirit went on course in future too he would be setting up an electric vehicle manufacturing unit in the state.
Mahindra also announced that its flagship Club Mahindra would set up a 200 bed time share unit in Varanasi circuit while Subhash Chandra also assured all help and support in Adityanath’s initiative to make UP a front-ranking state of the country.
Chandrashekharan also announced that TCS would now on not wrap up its Lucknow operations, as was the case earlier but would now also set up a 30,000 people new campus of the TCS in the state.
“TCS will continue to be in Lucknow and also strengthen its presence elsewhere in the state,” he said, also saying an IT centre would be set up in Varanasi, Modi’s parliamentary constituency.
Kamineni, who is also industry lobby CII’s President, said that she had not long ago brought with her a delegation of 60 top CEOs and announced that the Apollo Hospital was working with Cisco on an important project in Varanasi.
—IANS
