Gorakhpur (UP), Sep 23 Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Wednesday criticised the previous Samajwadi Party government over women’s safety and said before 2017, families worried about their daughters’ education and security.
Addressing a function after inaugurating a government women’s shelter in Chargawan here, the chief minister said, “Before 2017, a saying had become common in Uttar Pradesh ‘Dekh Sapai, bitiya ghabraai’ (seeing a Samajwadi Party worker, the daughter gets scared).” He alleged that the state had witnessed “goondaism (hooliganism), land grabbing and anarchy” during the previous government’s rule.
“Today, Uttar Pradesh is free from curfew, riots, fear, goondaism and land grabbing. When society and the government work in one direction, the results are visible,” he said.
The Rs 8.05-crore women’s shelter has a capacity to accommodate 100 women affected by domestic violence, abandonment and other difficult circumstances, officials said.
Adityanath said women forced to leave their homes or facing domestic violence would no longer have to wander for shelter.
“This shelter will become a lifeline for a woman facing domestic violence or a daughter, sister or elderly woman separated from her family,” he said.
On employment, he said, “You (opposition parties) will get tired of counting, but we will not get tired of giving jobs to the youth of Uttar Pradesh.” The chief minister said more than 9.5 lakh youths had been provided government jobs under the Mission Rozgar initiative.
He said 96 lakh MSME units in the state employed more than three crore people.
Adityanath also claimed that more than four lakh TB patients had been cured in the state and that deaths due to encephalitis had been brought down to zero. The chief minister said encephalitis had claimed the lives of children in eastern Uttar Pradesh before 2017, and around 500 children died annually at BRD Medical College alone. “Government efforts had brought the number of deaths down to zero,” he said.
He highlighted improvements in road, rail and air connectivity in Gorakhpur. He said better road links had reduced the travel time from Gorakhpur to Varanasi to around two and a half hours.
Gorakhpur MP Ravi Kishan Shukla said the government was standing with women and poor people and that the new shelter would provide a safe place for women without family support.
(PTI News)
