Lucknow: The Akhilesh Yadav faction of the Samajwadi Party has almost given up on the possibility of reconciliation in the party and has now started preparing to contest on its own.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, on Thursday, met 206 legislators and got them to sign an affidavit, reposing faith in the party symbol (cycle) and his leadership.
The Chief Minister, in another major development, has started preparing his manifesto, which will firmly focus on rural and urban youth.
A team of leaders, led by UP minister Rajendra Chaudhary, have started preparing the manifesto of the party and the highlight of this will be free distribution of smart phones. The Akhilesh government had already asked people to register for the smartphones and sources said that over one crore registrations have been received so far.
The Chief Minister has also asked his party MLAs to give feedback about local issues which could be included in the manifesto.
“The Chief Minister wants the manifesto to include something for every region. There could be incentives for indigenous industries like brassware in Moradabad, glassware in Ferozabad, lock units in Aligarh etc. He has asked us to provide the inputs within two days to the team that is preparing the manifesto”, said a legislator.
The manifesto will also highlight the welfare work done by the Akhilesh government in the past five years and important schemes that will find mention will include the distribution of laptops, Lucknow metro, Lucknow-Agra Expressway, Samajwadi pension scheme, 1090 women power line, Dial UP 100 scheme, 108 ambulance service and farmer insurance scheme.
“The idea is to tell the people how we have fulfilled all our promises made in the 2012 manifesto. This will give immense credibility to our new promises. We plan to put in pictures of some of the major projects in the manifesto too,” said a member of the team.
New posters that have come up in several constituencies clearly indicate that Akhilesh Yadav will have to go it alone in the polls. Candidates have been asked to put up posters that have the CM’s photograph along with their own photograph. These posters were put up in more than 65 constituencies on Tuesday evening itself.
