UP graft cases: BJP slams Akhilesh for all talk and no action

Lucknow: After Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav accused his predecessor Mayawati and her ministers of plundering state coffers through various projects, the BJP said the chief minister was only paying “mere lip service to graft”. Attacking Akhilesh Yadav, Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) state spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said if the chief minister felt so strongly about the graft cases during the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) regime between 2007-2012, why has there been no action against the tainted former ministers despite strong recommendations by the then Lokayunkta Justice N.K. Mehrotra. [caption id=“attachment_2558582” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Akhilesh Yadav. PTI[/caption] “We have always been saying that there is a silent understanding between the BSP and the SP on matters of corruption, and now that the chief minister has also spoken on the issue but not acted, it is evident that there is a nexus between the so-called political arch rivals and an understanding that ‘you save me and I save you’,” the BJP leader said. Pathak also questioned the utility and outcome of a commission formed by the Samajwadi Party (SP) government after coming to power in 2012 that promised a threadbare probe into the alleged wrong-doings of the then BSP government. After inaugurating a bridge in Faizabad on Monday, Akhilesh Yadav told media persons that “BSP projects were tailor-made to loot the coffers”.