SP has gone off rails, no more socialist: UP minister Brajesh Pathak

Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak on Saturday called Samajwadi Party a "derailed" party which has left behind its socialist principles.

"The party is derailed. It has deviated from its policies. These are not the real socialists but those who help mafia flourish," Pathak told reporters on the sidelines of an event held to commemorate those killed during the 1942 Ballia uprising.

"The people of Uttar Pradesh have pushed them to the edge. When in power, they promoted hooliganism and mafias. I can say with full faith that the people of the state will never accept them," he said on the SP.

Pathak was retaliating to SP president Akhilesh Yadav's statement on Friday that the BJP stood in opposition to the 1942 Quit India Movement started by Mahatma Gandhi and was making up for it now by hoisting flags everywhere.

"The people of BJP's ideology and their mother organisation (RSS) opposed the Quit India Movement led by the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi. To hide the same, they now hoist the flag in every house," Yadav had said on Friday in Fatehpur.

Attending a programme on the occasion of Ballia Balidan Diwas, Pathak recalled revolutionaries who rose against the British and perished in gunfire during the 1942 Quit India Movement.

Local MLA and state Transport Minister Daya Shankar Singh presented a car he said he bought from his salary to freedom fighter Ram Vichar Pandey.

In association with some auto firms, the administration also gave 75 electric scooters to the families of those martyred in the 1942 uprising.