New Delhi: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday promised one kg of 'ghee' along with free ration for five years to the poor if his party came to power in Uttar Pradesh, claiming that the BJP government would discontinue its free ration scheme.
Addressing a rally in Rae Bareli, Akhilesh Yadav said, "The poor, who are availing their rations, will get it till the elections. It will not be available after the elections. Earlier, it was to be given till November but when the UP elections were announced, they said they would get it till March."
He said funds for ration were not earmarked in "Delhi's budget as they know that the election will end in March."
"Ration was given by the Samajwadis earlier as well. As long as there is an SP government, we will give ration to our poor. Along with it, we will give mustard oil as well as two cylinders in a year. To see that the health of our poor gets better, one kilogram of ghee will also be given," the Samajwadi Party chief said.
The quality of the ration being distributed by the BJP government was poor and there were also reports of glass particles being found in the salt, Yadav said.
He also emphasised that there were 11 lakh government vacancies in UP and the SP government would provide jobs to the youth by filling up those posts.
"BJP leaders were seeking votes moving from house to house. Their senior leaders were distributing pamphlets... but now that campaign has stopped because when they visited some villages, people showed them empty gas cylinders. From the day empty cylinders were shown, their door-to-door campaigning stopped," Yadav said.
Training his guns on the Yogi Adityanath government over the law and order situation, Akhilesh said, "The highest number of custodial deaths have taken place under the BJP government. Corruption has also doubled in this double engine government."
Voting was held on Monday in 55 seats in the second phase of the Uttar Pradesh election and all the seats of Uttarakhand and Goa.
(With PTI inputs)