BJP attacks Akhilesh Yadav over Mumbai investors' meet

Says the Akhilesh govt had announced investment proposals worth Rs 54,000 cr after the 2014 meet, but none have materialised on ground

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has attacked Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav over the high profile investors' meet in Mumbai today by asking the outcome of a similar conclave at New Delhi in June 2014.

BJP spokesperson Vijay Bahadur Pathak said here the Akhilesh government had announced investment proposals worth Rs 54,000 crore after the 2014 meet, but none have materialised on ground.

"Such investors' meet were organised during the previous Mayawati regime in Mumbai as well, but it has always come a cropper," he said underlining unless basic infrastructure facilities of power and law and order were addressed, big investors would remain elusive.

Taking a potshot at Yadav for saying that 20 million eggs were consumed in UP daily in his address at the Mumbai meet, Pathak said it would have been appropriate if the CM had talked about the state growth rate, agricultural growth rate, Value Added Tax (VAT) cuts and total investments received.

"From his speech, it was felt as if the CM was reading out from Wikipedia regarding UP was a big market, largest wheat producer, having largest number of bank branches etc," he added

He said while the government was making tall claims about investment, it had yet not revealed actual investment flow in the state under the present rule.

Pathak suggested the regime should make "sincere" efforts for investment. "The government should tell how many new enterprises had been set up in UP and what steps were taken to reenergise sick industries and revive defunct units."

He maintained if the state government had only tackled the basic problems afflicting industries, the investment would flow automatically.

Further castigation the state bureaucratic functioning, the BJP leader said owing to the lackadaisical attitude of officials, the government has failed to even spend its allocated budget.

Under the Akhilesh regime over the last three-and-half years, several investors' meets have been organised by the dispensation in Mumbai, Delhi and Agra, besides Yadav personally meeting several top industrialists at various places, including Lucknow.