As Lucknow gets ready to witness history with its first Metro rail being flagged off on September 5, the war of words over claiming credit for the project has further intensified.
It all started when a television commercial showcasing the Lucknow Metro with a video message from Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath started airing. In the commercial, CM Adityanath claimed that time has come when PM Modi’s dream would finally be realized as the Lucknow Metro is all set to be launched on Tuesday.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Governor Ram Naik and other ministers will be attend the inauguration ceremony.
As soon as the commercial was aired, the otherwise calm Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, went ballistic on Twitter to stake his share of credit for the ambitious Lucknow Metro project.
On the Sunday, around 9.00 pm, the former Chief Minister tweeted some pictures of Lucknow Metro staff and him and congratulated the entire team for the success.
He tweeted, “Lucknow Metro, Logo Ko Shreedharan Ji aur us team ki yaad dilayegi jisne hamare is sapne ko sach kar dikhaya. Sabko Dhanywad aur Badhai.” (The Lucknow Metro will remind the people of Shreedharan Ji and the team that worked to make this dream come true. Congratulations to the team and thank you.)
This credit battle did not end here and Akhilesh once again tweeted on Monday: “Engine to Pehle Chal Dia tha, Dibbe to piche aane hi the.” (The engine had started long back, the coaches had to follow).
Lucknow Metro was the most ambitious project of the former chief minister and Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav. He never stopped short of boasting about the Lucknow Metro as one of the achievements of his government while campaigning for the recent state elections.
Soon after Yadav’s tweet around 10.30 pm, the official Twitter handle of the UP Chief Minister retorted with a reply. He tweeted a short video clip of the Lucknow Metro and claimed that the wait for the Metro was finally over. He tweeted: “Pradesh Ki Rajdhani Lucknow Ka Intezar khatam. Sapno ko Haqeeqat me badalne aa rahi hai Lucknow Metro.” (Lucknow’s wait is over. The Lucknow Metro has come to make the dreams come true).
Taking a potshot at the BJP government, Samajwadi Party spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary said, “The BJP has mastered the art of taking credit without doing any work. In the past five months, the BJP government has not introduced a single scheme on their own and are just boasting of the schemes implemented by Akhilesh Yadav. A fresh example will be the Lucknow Metro project, which was a project realised in record time by the Samajwadi government.”
The Samajwadi Party couldn’t stop at that. The party’s MLC from Unnao and close aide to Akhilesh, Sunil Singh ‘Sajan’ also took a jibe at the BJP asked them to brush their memory that Modi Ji’s dream was a bullet train and the Metro was some that Akhilesh had ‘given’.
He tweeted, “UP sarkar keh rahi hai ki metro ka sapna Modi ji ka hai! BJP yaddasht durust kare, Modi ji ka sapna bullet train tha, metro Akhilesh ji ki den hai.”
Another senior Samajwadi Party leader and ex Minister UP Government, Juhi Singh taunted BJP and tweeted, “Metro in Lucknow is the vision of Yadav Akhilesh, Yogi Ji Ram Ram Japna, Paraya Maal Apna.”
On the eve of the formal inauguration of Lucknow Metro, thousands of Samajwadi Party workers gathered at Charbagh and celebrated with much fervour and lauding Akhilesh Yadav for the project.
Some of these men were detained by the police as they were caught putting up posters with congratulatory messages for Akhilesh Yadav.
The workers were detained overnight and later shifted to Manak Nagar Police station.
State President of Mulayam Singh Youth Brigade, Mohd Ebad said, “Last night at 1.30 am, we were putting up posters near the Alambagh Metro Station when police detained our workers without any reason. Since then our workers are in police custody. This is absolutely ridiculous as the BJP government wants to take credit for something that was done by our National President Akhilesh Yadav Ji.”
