No Ram Rajya without Socialism: Akhilesh Yadav

Raebareli: There can be no Ram Rajya without socialism, Samajwadi chief Akhilesh Yadav told ET in an interview during the seventh leg of his Vijay Yatra in Raebareli on Friday.

SP has forged alliances with seven small parties. The latest one was with Shivpal Yadav's Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party, an alliance which ended nearly five years of family feud. "More than family, the public has accepted Samajwadi Party as the only choice to beat the BJP. There had been an effort to bring regional parties together and now that Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party has joined, it has amplified the signal that only SP can defeat BJP in the state," he said.

The former chief minister said that the BJP failed to keep its promises and people's hardship had increased severalfold. "BJP made promises to double people's income, but this has not happened. Huge advertisements about jobs have been put up all over, from Lucknow to New Delhi, but they are far from reality. Whatever programmes held for investments turned futile. They claim they have signed MoUs worth ₹5 lakh crore, but it's nowhere to be seen. Moreover, when inflation spirals out of control and income is halved, how will homes prosper? Today, farmers don't get fertilisers and DAP; they don't get the right price for their produce either. BJP has no answer to these pertinent issues," Yadav said.


At the winter assembly session on Thursday, chief minister Yogi Adityanath had declared that the country did not need socialism but Ram Rajya, in an ostensible attack at SP which identifies itself as a socialist party. Referring to it, Yadav said: "How can you envision Ram Rajya without socialism? The vision will remain incomplete. Ram Rajya is socialism. A socialist order will bring Ram Rajya."

On the CM's remark that it was BJP who had 'fulfilled Lohia's dream', Yadav said BJP was trying to appropriate leaders of other parties. "BJP does not have any thinkers to call its own, which is why its tries to appropriate leaders of other parties." He said, "BJP cannot bring back socialism by selling state owned enterprises or raining lathis on those who seek job reservations. They don't know Ram Manohar Lohia, nor have they read about him, which is why they are defying the Constitution. They should at least read the Preamble," he said.