Purvanchal Expressway Launch: Yogi Adityanath says the foundation of the project was laid in 2018 by PM Modi, and not in 2016 as Akhilesh Yadav claims.
Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh: Ahead of the big launch of the 340-km long Purvanchal Expressway in Uttar Pradesh by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today, the opposition has claimed 2,000 government buses have been diverted to fetch crowds to the event.
Here are ten big points on the Purvanchal Expressway event:
- The Prime Minister landed in an Air Force C-130J Super Hercules aircraft this afternoon on the major highway, which, Chief Minister Yogi Adtyanath says, “will become the backbone of the state economy”.
- Former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has accused the ruling BJP of taking credit for his work ahead of the state elections next year. In a tweet this morning, he took a swipe saying, “The ribbon has come from Lucknow and the scissors came from Delhi to take credit for the Samajwadi Party’s work…”
- Yogi Adityanath says the foundation of the project was laid in 2018 by PM Modi, and not in 2016 as Akhilesh Yadav claims. “The Prime Minister laid the foundation stone for this expressway in July 2018 and we are in a position today that the PM will inaugurate it. This is a prime example of how a ‘double engine’ government functions,” he said on Monday.
- Amid claims by the opposition parties that government buses are being used for the event, officials at the bus stations in Faizabad and Varanasi said that the buses were diverted for the big expressway event.
- Locals faced inconvenience as posters were put up at a bus station in Varanasi to inform them about the change in schedules.
- In the run-up to the big event, videos on social media captured the trial runs in Sultanpur for PM Modi’s visit. A clip of a dry-run on Sunday showed a Mirage 2000, an AN-32 turboprop, and a Sukhoi-30 landing on the highway, about 100 km from state capital Lucknow
- PM Modi will go for a public rally shortly. Around an hour later, he will witness a Mirage 2000 landing on the 3.2 km airstrip and a servicing demo. An AN-32 transport aircraft will land troops on the airstrip. This will be followed by a flypast by three Kiran Mk2s, flanked by 2 Sukhoi 30 jets.
- “Tomorrow is a special day for Uttar Pradesh’s growth trajectory. At 1:30 PM, the Purvanchal Expressway will be inaugurated. This project brings with it multiple benefits for UP’s economic and social progress,” PM Modi tweeted last evening.
- The highway is “6-lane wide which can be expanded to 8-lane in future. It has been constructed at an estimated cost of about ₹ 22,500 crores,” according to an official statement.
- It is going to give a boost to the economic development of the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh especially the districts of Lucknow, Barabanki, Amethi, Ayodhya, Sultanpur, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh, Mau, and Ghazipur, the statement says.