Akhilesh Yadav hits out at Adityanath for deciding to distribute laptops among students in UP next month

Azamgarh/Lucknow, Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav took a swipe at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday for honouring the poll promise of providing laptops and tablet computers to students only now, saying the chief minister himself is unable to operate a laptop, drawing a riposte from his deputy Dinesh Sharma. Yadav took the dig at Adityanath for deciding to distribute laptops and tablet computers among students next month, a poll promise made by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in 2017.

"If he (Adityanath) knew how to operate a laptop, he would have distributed those earlier," the SP chief said at a function held in an inter-college in Azamgarh, his parliamentary constituency.

The BJP manifesto for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls had stated that the students opting for further studies will be given laptops and tablet computers, along with free data, and Wi-Fi connections will be installed in those institutions, Yadav said.



"The BJP had written in its manifesto that it will give laptops to the children, but those are not traceable. I came to know through the newspapers today that it is going to distribute tablet computers. I want to know from them which tablet they had been giving to these children for four-and-a-half years?" he asked.

Training his guns at Adityanath, the SP chief said, "The baba chief minister is very worried. He has been thinking a lot as to who will come to power. I want to tell him that this time, the 24 crore people of Uttar Pradesh have decided that those who will remove people making false promises will come to power."

"If the baba chief minister opens the laptop given by us, he will come to know who is coming to power," he said and took a jibe at Adityanath, saying he will not do it because he does not know how to operate a laptop.

Speaking on the issue in Lucknow, Sharma said, "An election speech is one thing, but he (Yadav) seems to have made this statement due to lack of proper information."

"Yogiji is credited with holding the e-cabinet and the government presented an e-budget in the Assembly in February. The SP MLAs boycotted the e-budget as they failed to turn up at the training session for handling the machine," he told PTI.

"Yogiji attends a cabinet meeting without a piece of paper and culls relevant information using tablet computers and laptops," the deputy chief minister said.

The Uttar Pradesh government has launched the e-filing facility in its departments, he added.

The BJP leader also did not attach any importance to Om Prakash Rajbhar's Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) joining hands with the SP in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh polls.

The SBSP had contested the 2017 Uttar Pradesh polls in an alliance with the BJP and Rajbhar was made a minister in the Adityanath cabinet.

In 2019, Rajbhar parted ways with the saffron party.

"SP plus BSP, SP and Congress had together tried their luck earlier and got badly defeated by the BJP. Is this alliance bigger than those alliances?" Sharma asked.

Yadav and Rajbhar announced the SP-SBSP alliance for the state Assembly polls, due early next year, at Mau on Wednesday.