Lucknow, March 29 After SP president Akhilesh Yadav claimed credit for the Noida International Airport, BSP chief Mayawati on Sunday said that the groundwork for the project was laid during her tenure as Uttar Pradesh chief minister and blamed the Congress and Samajwadi Party for the delay in its completion.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the airport in Jewar on Saturday.
In a post on X, Mayawati said the first phase of the airport was inaugurated after a long wait, but its blueprint and essential foundational work had been initiated during her government.
“After a long wait, the first phase of the Noida International Airport at Jewar was inaugurated yesterday, whereas not only its blueprint but all the necessary basic works had already begun during my government under the BSP,” she said.
Targeting the Congress, she alleged that the project would have been completed much earlier if the then-central government had not created hurdles.
“If the Congress-led government at the Centre at that time had not caused obstruction, this development work, like the Yamuna Expressway, would have been completed much earlier during my tenure,” she said.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo also criticised the Samajwadi Party, accusing it undoing her government's initiatives instead of focusing on development.
“As far as the SP government is concerned, most of its time was spent not on undertaking concrete development works to remove poverty and backwardness in Uttar Pradesh, but in nullifying the historic decisions and important works carried out by the BSP government for the welfare and upliftment of weaker sections,” she said.
She alleged that the SP government was engaged in “negative, casteist and politically motivated actions”, including renaming institutions and "neglecting" memorials, parks and establishments built in honour of prominent saints, gurus and leaders from the Bahujan community.
Mayawati has served as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh four times -- from June 1995 to October 1995; from March 1997 to September 1997; from May 2002 to August 2003 and from May 2007 to March 2012.
She appealed to the people of the state not to be "misled" by opposition parties.
“In view of all this, the people of Uttar Pradesh are appealed not to be misled by the deceptive politics of rival parties, but to trust the BSP’s policy and principle of ‘Sarvajan Hitay, Sarvajan Sukhay’ and repose faith in its strong leadership for their own and the state’s development,” Mayawati said.
She also raised the long-pending demand for a separate bench of the High Court in western Uttar Pradesh and a separate state. “Along with this, it remains to be seen when the demand for a separate High Court bench in western Uttar Pradesh and the dream of a separate state for the region will be fulfilled,” she added.
Addressing a rally in Dadri on Sunday, Akhilesh Yadav claimed that the SP had played a key role in facilitating approvals for the Jewar airport project.
"If anyone worked to secure the necessary clearances for the airport, it was the Samajwadi Party. That is why the project has materialised today," he said.