File Photo: Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav
With Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh apparently weighing heavily on his mind, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav today bluntly told his party leaders to serve the people instead of making money.
He also took District Magistrates to task on illegal mining at various places in the state, where Assembly elections are due in early 2017.
"Those in politics, instead of serving the people, are doing business. It has crossed limits. Has anyone seen any member of my family taking contracts, if so tell me," Mr Yadav said.
He was addressing a public meeting after inaugurating the first 660 MW unit of 1980 MW supercritical thermal power plant commissioned by Lalitpur Power Generation Co Ltd (LPGCL).
"Ours is a party of poor, principles and not those who only concentrate on earning money," he said.
The SP chief said, "There are certain very serious issues, which I am telling and I want to warn. Illegal mining is continuing unabated and I have got all the information. The DMs will be held responsible if illegal mining takes place. Even leaders involved in it will be sent to jail."
His reference was to Bundelkhand region, which is notorious for illegal mining.
"I am the national president of SP. We want to present an ideal in the country that SP is not a party which indulges in corruption or give and take," he said.
Mr Yadav said that on the question of farmers, SP was the lone party which raised its voice against land acquisition against erstwhile Congress-led UPA government.
"It was our MP who tore the copy of the bill in Parliament," he said.
While praising SP government led by his son Akhilesh Yadav, Mulayam said that it had waived loans of farmers.
"It is due to efforts of the government that land of a farmer cannot be auctioned to recover loan. We provided fund for girls from poor families. If we count the list is very long," he said.
"I can challenge that the number of development works done by UP government has not been done by any other government. It implemented its election manifesto. According to a survey, UP is ranked third in terms of development and if this continues it will be ranked number one," the former chief minister claimed.
Regarding Lalitpur plant, Mr Yadav said initially 660 MW unit has been commissioned and in days to come the state would get 2,000 MW power.
He said that it was possible that UP could become power surplus state and supply energy to other states as well.
"This is a very important work done by the SP government. I did it and Akhilesh is also pursuing it," he said.
Regretting absence of Akhilesh, Yadav said "Unko aana chahiye tha lekin wo bole aap jaaiye hum nahi jayenge" (He should have come, but he said that you go, I won't).
He said development of the state was not possible without power and it was required in every sphere of life.
The SP chief attacked past Congress and BSP governments for causing immense damage to the state.
"Nobody talks about how much damage Congress and BSP governments caused to the state. These parties did nothing on power front during their regimes and ruined the state," he alleged.
He said that as far as SP was concerned its government set up a number of plants and refurbished old units.