Red caps a red alert for UP: PM targets SP on Yogi's home turf

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 7

Launching a sharp attack on the Samajwadi Party (SP), BJP’s main political rival in Uttar Pradesh where Assembly elections are due early next year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday warned people against “lal topiwalas”—red cap is a trademark headgear of SP activists.

Red-capped people sound the “red alert” for UP, said Modi while addressing a rally on UP CM’s home turf Gorakhpur after inaugurating three projects — a fertiliser plant, AIIMS and a new building of Regional Medical Research Centre (RMRC) of ICMR — worth Rs 9,600 crore.

Targeting former UP CM and SP leader Akhilesh Yadav, who dons a red cap during his public appearances, Modi alleged the state people were aware that “lal topiwalas” were only interested in cars flashing red beacons.

Without naming the SP or Akhilesh, Modi said those with red caps had long back discarded the ideology of Ram Manohar Lohia and Jai Prakash Narayan. “They are not bothered about the problems of common people. They want only power so that they can indulge in scams, load their safes with cash and valuables, carry out illegal encroachments and allow the mafia to have a free run… shower generosity on terrorists and release them from prisons,” the PM said, evoking loud cheer from the crowd.

Hitting back, Akhilesh asserted that the people wearing red caps were “red alerts” also for the BJP as they would oust it from power.

The PM said sugarcane farmers of UP would find it hard to forget the trouble they were made to undergo by the SP government. “Sugarcane payments used to be made in instalments and there used to be big time gap between each payment,” he said.

Among the inaugurated projects, the Gorakhpur Fertiliser Plant was lying shut for 30 years. It has been revived and built at a cost of around Rs 8,600 crore.

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