Checking ground realities before opening salvo is not something Gul Panag knows how to do

In the latest incident involving a biased attack stemming from half baked knowledge, Gul Panag has made a comment on the Yogi Adityanath government in highly bad taste. Model turned politician and current Aam Aadmi party candidate from Chandigarh, Gul Panag is known for her social activism. Her social activism now seems clouded due to her political affiliations.

Making a jibe on a comment by Yogi Adityanath, she stated “Why bother with issues like public health & education? Or even ‘development’?”

This was in response to the UP Chief Minister’s comment, “If SP-BSP believes in Ali, BJP in Bajrangbali.” However, Adityanath’s comment was in response to SP_BSP leader Mayawati’s speech wherein she, in an attempt to practice vote bank politics appealed to Muslims to vote for the alliance. She stated, “I am appealing to as well as warning Muslims not to divide their votes this time. The Mahagathbandhan will throw out the BJP government,” This comment has breached the moral code of conduct which states, “There shall be no appeal to caste or communal feelings for securing votes.” Due to these remarks, the poll authorities in Uttar Pradesh have sent a factual report to the Election Commission which will ascertain whether the comments were violative of the Model Code of Conduct, in force since March 10.

Mrs. Panag however has remained mum about Mayawati’s distasteful remarks which are infringing the code of conduct. She did not dare to speak on the communal politics SP-BSP mahagathbandhan is practicing but immediately spoke up when Yogi Adityanath made a retort to Mayawati’s comment. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, she expressed her outrage towards the Hindus.

As a leader, Yogi Adityanath has never practiced vote bank politics, as is evident from the tweet he wrote after Mayawati’s communalism:

However Gul Panag didn’t choose to comment on this tweet. She instead chose to pass a remark on an excerpt from his speech. Nevertheless, even during her “selective outrage”, she could have at least checked the facts.

Development in UP under Yogi Adityanath has been unprecedented. The chief minister has proceeded to develop the state of UP by employing the three Es– Execution – of a strategic development plan and welfare measures, Efficiency in allocation of state resources and Enforcement of rules.

The government has introduced a system of holding all officers, be it irrigation, police or education along with the local representatives, MLAs and MPs, responsible for their actions. The MLA’s are answerable even in situations as minor as a water pump not working. Moreover, Yogi has removed all the “proxy” employees, which has increased the accountability. This has lead to efficiency of work with the projects being completed on time and have led to a decrease in the overruns. Thus, requests for additional funding have been reduced by half, with Yogi introducing no new taxes in the budget. On the infrastructure front, over 1.4 crore toilets and close to 1.1 million homes have been constructed, along with the establishment of over 5 million new electricity connections, which indicates tremendous development.  

Viewing the education statistics, nearly 1.5 crore new children have joined primary education. Moreover, with centralised examination locations and CCTV monitoring, the extent of students cheating has greatly diminished.

Not wanting to restrict himself to simply waiving off the farmer’s loans, Adityanath has invested in long term development as farming is the principle occupation of the people in the state of UP. It includes, giving the farmers access to tools such as soil health card and access to “seed” financing for entrepreneurs and farmers.

Focusing on the health sector, the UP government launched a healthcare scheme, the ‘Mukhya Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyan’ for those people who would not be covered under the Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection Mission Scheme (NHPMS). The National healthcare scheme along with the state scheme will cover 65 million people in UP. Moroever, legal proceedings were initiated against those doctors who were misusing the medical services for their own benefit.

Women safety was one of the first matters Yogi Adityanath dealt with when he came to power. Anti-Romeo squads were constituted for the purpose of safety of girls and women, for protection against men harassing them.

Additionally, the criminal gangs have been strongly dealt with. A culture of ‘pushing for action’ instead of ‘complaining’ has been inculcated among the MLA’s and MP’s. 

As is evident enough, development underneath the Yogi Adityanath regime has been at a massive scale. The state came under his rule in a very bad situation, with the level of corruption at its peak. Against all odds, Adityanath has been working to get the state in order and has achieved amazing results. In this backdrop, Gul Panag has decided to question the government on their pro-active efforts for state development.