This Week Uttar Pradesh: Expressway ready but new govt isn’t

Expressway ready but new govt isn't

The Yamuna Expressway between Greater Noida and Agra is almost ready, but the Akhilesh Yadav government does not want an early inauguration. The Samajwadi Party is still basking in its election victory, and the inauguration of the expressway would shift the focus, even if temporarily, on former chief minister Mayawati who executed the project in spite of roadblocks put up by the Samajwadi Party in the past. There is also the apprehension that farmers whose land had been acquired, and whom the SP had supported, would embarrass the government by using the occasion to rake up demands like higher compensation. The government is going slow on issues like approval of toll rates and speed limits for the expressway. It has asked the promoter to undertake plantation along the carriageway and make lighting arrangements.

Maya & the two Houses

After taking oath as a member of the Rajya Sabha, former chief minister and BSP president Mayawati has become chairperson of the BSP parliamentary party, like senior BJP leader L K Advani who is chairman of the BJP parliamentary party. She has been attending the Rajya Sabha regularly. But she devotes most of her time to organisational work in order to prepare the BSP for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. She is in regular touch with party co-ordinators in all states and holds a meeting with them on the 10th of every month. Partymen say the former chief minister is paying special attention to stengthening the BSP in Uttar Pradesh.

Race for RS seat

Within days of the sudden death of its national vice-president Brijbhushan Tiwari, the SP has several claimants to the Rajya Sabha seat that has fallen vacant. Shahid Siddiqui recently met Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow. Senior leader Bhagwati Singh too is lobbying. Also keen is Anuradha Chaudhary, who had left the Rashtriya Lok Dal and joined the SP just before the Assembly elections. Then there is the old claim of Delhi's Imam Bukhari who had last month accused the SP of not giving Muslims their due in the Rajya Sabha, allegedly after the SP ignored his demand to nominate his brother. Tiwari died last week, after he had taken oath as MP.

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