Lucknow: New Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav will
be hoping hard this is not a portent. Barely had the 38-year-old been
sworn in as the state's youngest Chief Minister, that his biggest
challenge was demonstrated by his party workers who shoved their way
onto the stage and were seen climbing on sofas.
So shortly
after being sworn in, the young SP leader assured the people of his
state that his government "will not tolerate lawlessness and will
tackle it with an iron hand." "Samajwadi Party will fulfill promises
made in the manifesto. Law and order will be our responsibility from
today," he said. During extensive campaigning in Uttar Pradesh during
the recently held polls, Mr Yadav had vowed to cleanse his party of
"goonda-giri" or hooliganism; he had also said
that his top priority would be to deliver law and order to a state besieged by crime.
Earlier
in the day, Mr Yadav, dressed in white kurta pyjama and black
sleeveless jacket and looking uncannily like his father Mulayam Singh
Yadav, took oath at 11.34 am at the La Martiniere College grounds in
Lucknow. He firmly shook hands with Governor BL Joshi, and then, a
picture of calm, reached into his left breast pocket for a pen, signed
and waved to the hundreds of SP supporters who had gathered at the
venue since early morning.
Nineteen Cabinet ministers and 29
ministers of state also took oath, among them the controversial
independent MLA with criminal antecedents, Raghuraj Pratap Singh or
Raja Bhaiyya, who expectedly thrown his lot with the SP. After taking
over as the CM, Akhilesh defended Raja Bhaiyya, who has been a minister
before in a Mulayam Singh government, and accused his predecessor
Mayawati of filing false cases against him. "We all know how cases
against Raja Bhaiyya were filed," he said.
"Organised
corruption as happened in the previous regime never took place in the
state. There were restrictions during the previous government and UP is
now celebrating democracy," he added.
In the star-studded
audience cheering Mr Yadav at the swearing-in ceremony were Sitaram
Yechury, Biman Bose and industrialist Anil Ambani.
His
unruly cadres are already proving to be the new UP Chief Minister's
Achilles Heel. He has the advantage of having come to power with an
unambiguous majority with 224 seats in the 403-seat UP Assembly. He
scripted that Samajwadi Party win with a forward-looking agenda that
has promised the people of UP freedom from goonda raj and good law and
order, jobs and education, and good economics. He now has his task cut
out - he has vowed to implement his election manifesto to the full.
Rival
parties wager that law and order will deteriorate in a Samajwadi Party
regime, as has happened before. Even before Akhilesh was sworn in, he
has been called upon to explain violent conduct of SP workers in
several places. He had so far pleaded that officials of the old
dispensation were to blame. Now, having taken charge, he has to prove
that those were not empty words.
Among other things he promised
in that document were sops like laptops students who passed class 10,
tablet computers to those who passed class 12, allowance to unemployed
youths, free treatment to patients suffering from serious ailments and
loan waivers for farmers.
Akhilesh will also have to take a call
on constituting a commission for taking legal opinion on providing
reservation to Muslims and implementing recommendations of the
Ranganath Mishra Commission and the Sachar Committee.
The SP
leader has also said that rooting out corruption in the state is among
his top priorities. And has promised to remove the ban on student
politics in the state.
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