Akhilesh Yadav accused CM Yogi Adityanath of planning to sell JPNIC to a private company
Akhilesh Yadav, the president of the Samajwadi Party, said on Friday that the Yogi Adityanath administration intended to sell the Jayaprakash Narayan International Centre (JPNIC), which is now under construction, to a private enterprise.
The state administration had earlier come under fire from the SP for stopping Akhilesh from conducting a 4 kilometer parade to decorate the communist leader’s monument on the 122nd anniversary of his birth from his residence to the shuttered JPNIC.
At a rally of his supporters outside his home on Friday morning, Akhilesh said, “The Bharatiya Janata Party dislikes JP because he was socialist and secular.”
The march was scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. with the SP members leading, but police and paramilitary forces were stationed in front of Akhilesh’s residence as well as the JPNIC.
On Thursday night, the SP chief made it to the JPNIC gate; however, tin huts had been built around the structure to bar anybody from visiting the property.
“I was not allowed to go there to pay my respects to the communist leader for the second year in a row by the BJP administration. I’ve learned that they want to sell it to a private company,” said Akhilesh.
Under Akhilesh’s leadership as chief minister, the JPNIC was built between 2012 and 2017 for socialist research. There was also talk of building a museum dedicated to Jayaprakash Narayan, but once Adityanath was appointed chief minister in 2017, the project was shelved.
The Lucknow government sent a bust of Jayaprakash Narayan in an open van for the SP president to garland it, but the SP workers refused to leave the area around Akhilesh’s residence.
The Lucknow Development Authority official said, speaking under anonymity, “The JPNIC has been closed for the last many years and tall grasses have grown there,” despite the government officials’ refusal to comment. We had warned the SP chief not to go there due to the possibility of snakes being there. Saying that the government will sell it is incorrect.
As to many analysts, the popularity of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, which is the ideological core of the BJP, has been attributed to Jayaprakash Narayan.
He had let the RSS to join his “Total Revolution” program in the 1970s, which was aimed at overthrowing the Congress government headed by Indira Gandhi.
Subsequently, Jayaprakash Narayan faced allegations of aiding the right-wing factions. However, since he was fundamentally against religious politics, he was disowned by the present leaders of the RSS.
