Express News Service
LUCKNOW: In order to mobilise his party cadre, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav commence his Mission 2022 by embarking upon his Vijay Yatra on Tuesday.
Ahead of the Yatra, Akhilesh on Monday went to seek blessings of his father and party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav at his residence in Lucknow.
With the motive to sensitise people about the alleged autocratic rule of the BJP government and to establish democratic values in the state, Akhilesh would start the Samajwadi Vijay Yatra from Ganga bridge in Kanpur. The Yatra will continue intermittently till the notification of polls early next year.
Akhilesh has got a Mercedes bus converted into a ‘rath’ covered with his posters on one side. The other side has posters of Mulayam Singh Yadav and one of the three sides has been dedicated to the party’s Rampur MP Azam Khan.
ALSO READ | 2022 UP polls: Mayawati promises jobs to stop migration if voted to power
The rath is already stationed in Kanpur while Akhilesh will leave Lucknow early in the morning to start the journey from Ganga bridge at 10 am. In its first leg from October 12 and 13, the Yatra would cover the Kanpur region comprising Kanpur Dehat, Jalaun and Hamirpur.
“During its first phase, the yatra is scheduled to reach Naubasta (Kanpur) at 11.30 am, then go to Naveli Lignite Power station, Ghatampur, and then reach Hamirpur at 5 pm. The next day, the yatra will restart from Hamirpur at 9.30 am covering Kurara, Hamirpur, Kalpi in Jalaun district and end this first leg of the journey at Mati in Kanpur Dehat at 4 pm,” said Rajendra Chaudhary, state spokesperson, Samajwadi Party.
This Yatra would promise justice to farmers, youth, scheduled castes and deprived sections, besides, backwards and minorities. “It is an endeavour to make people aware of the shortcomings and wrongdoings of this government and impress upon them to rid the state of this autocracy in 2022,” said party spokesman Rajendra Chaudhury.
According to Chaudhury, it would be the third such yatra being undertaken by Akhilesh. “He had embarked on such a Kranti Rath yatra for the first time in July 2001 followed by the second in September 2011. After both the years, SP came back to power in UP,” said Chaudhury.
While taking a swipe on the Samajwadi Vijay Yatra, BJP cabinet minister and state government spokesman Siddharthnath Singh called it another insult of the people of the state as it was being undertaken in a five-star rath by those who had dumped the harried people of the state during the horrific times of pandemic.