Underlining the BJP’s election pitch for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election — fark saaf hai (the difference is clear), Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said that under previous governments in the State women had to think 100 times before stepping out of their homes but under the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government it was the criminals who needed to think hard.
Comparing the law and order situation under the Adityanath government with previous governments, Mr. Modi accused those formerly in power of protecting “mafia”, promoting baahubalis (political strongmen) and illegally grabbing land.
Mr. Modi said that today Yogiji ki sarkar was engaged in the safai (wiping out) of mafia, empowering the poor, Dalits, backward caste communities and tribals.
“That’s why the people of U.P. are saying fark saaf hai,” Mr. Modi said in Balrampur, where he inaugurated the Saryu Nahar National Project.
The project aims at providing water for the irrigation of over 14 lakh hectares of land and seeks to benefit 29 lakh farmers in over 6,200 villages in nine districts of eastern U.P., including Bahraich, Sravasti, Balrampur, Gonda, Siddharthnagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur and Maharajganj.
The Saryu Nahar National Project was built at a total cost of more than ₹9,800 crore, out of which more than ₹4,600 crore was provisioned in the last four years, the Government said.
Mr. Modi said that for the first time a government was linking small farmers, those with less than two hectares of land, to public facilities and benefits. For the small farmers, the irrigation facility would be “life-changing”, said the Prime Minister.
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From beej to bazaar (seed to market) and khet to khalihan (farm to barn), they are being helped at all levels, Mr. Modi stressed.
While emphasising the benefits of a “double engine government”, Mr. Modi said before 2017, sugar cane farmers had to wait for years for their dues and 20 sugar mills were forced to shut down during previous government regimes. In contrast, the government of Mr. Adityanath had expanded and modernised sugar mills, he stated.
Referring to the death of Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife and 11 others in a chopper crash in Tamil Nadu, Mr. Modi said that while the country was still in mourning, it would not stop its progress. “India will not stop, it won’t halt,” said Mr. Modi.
