Uttar Pradesh: BJP conspired to keep me grounded, says Akhilesh Yadav

LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Friday accused the ruling BJP of conspiring to keep him grounded for hours at Delhi airport from where he had to fly to Muzaffarnagar to address a press conference jointly with alliance partner Rashitrya Lok Dal chief Jayanat Chaudhary.
BJP UP chief Swatantra Dev Singh rubbished the former UP chief minister’s charge as an excuse for the defeat that the SP will face in assembly polls.
“My helicopter has been grounded in Delhi without giving me any reason for it and I am not being allowed to leave for Muzaffarnagar. This is when a top BJP leader has just taken off from here. This is a conspiracy of the BJP which is getting desperate because they can sense the defeat. People can see through everything …,” Akhilesh tweeted in Hindi at around 3 pm with a photograph of him on the tarmac with a chopper and its crew in the background.
Hours later UP BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh hit back, saying that the SP leader has started making excuses for the defeat which his party would face in the UP elections. “It is a sign of desperation ahead of a crushing defeat,” he said. Singh said that those who were not able to take up campaigning were making excuses of their chopper not taking off. In the last several days, BJP leaders also had trouble in ‘taking-off’ and they had to wait for hours but they did not do gimmicks. Such gimmicks can get these people photo ops and publicity but not votes. This time people will vote to stop the return of Gundaraj and Dangaraj, Singh said in a statement issued in Lucknow.
Earlier in the day, the former UP CM boarded a chartered flight in Lucknow at 10:30 in the morning to reach Delhi from where he was scheduled to board a chartered chopper flight at 2:15 pm to reach Muzaffarnagar Police Lines ground at 12: 50 pm. He was scheduled to address a press conference at a hotel in Muzaffarnagar at 1:10. At 2:30 pm both Akhilesh and Jayant were scheduled to head for Meerut by road to address another press conference. The minute-by-minute itinerary of the SP chief, as a regular practice, was released a day in advance.
While addressing the press-conference, Akhilesh excused himself for the delay saying, “I kept sitting inside the helicopter for hours but was not assigned any reason behind the delay. The chopper had to be refuelled before I reached here. I am thankful to whoever has helped me reach here,” he said. After the press conference in Muzaffarnagar, Akhilesh left for Meerut along with Jayant Chaudhary.