Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday used the inauguration of the Purvanchal Expressway to claim previous governments had neglected the eastern part of the state.
Modi arrived at the highway on an Indian Air Force plane.
After the inauguration ceremony, Modi addressed a rally in Sultanpur. He said previous governments in Uttar Pradesh, led by opposition parties, reduced the state's vital eastern part to “mafiawaad” and poverty, but the BJP government was now writing a new chapter of development.
Modi alleged that previous governments focussed on infrastructure projects in areas where the respective chief ministers had homes or relatives, but the Yogi Adityanath government was giving fruits of development to the eastern region that matched the western part of Uttar Pradesh.
Adityanath stressed that work on the expressway was completed in three years, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Adityanath was quoted by ANI as saying, “Eastern Uttar Pradesh had been neglected continuously since Independence. Now, this Purvanchal Expressway will prove to be an important step in the development of eastern Uttar Pradesh.”
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Giving details of infrastructure projects across Uttar Pradesh, Adityanath said, “Work is under way to connect Bundelkhand with a new expressway. The work of Ganga Expressway is going to start to connect western Uttar Pradesh with eastern Uttar Pradesh. By next month, the metro system of Kanpur will also open."
Adityanath claimed that while there were only airports in Lucknow and Varanasi when he became chief minister in 2017, now nine airports were functional in the state and work on 11 news ones was ongoing.