Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday advised the Central government to focus on fulfilling the promises it made during elections rather than raising issues like "one nation, one election".
The 'one nation, one election' idea is a long exercise and it will take time to see the ground reality. The government should instead focus on the promises it made during the elections, right now they have got the majority and they should focus on their promises. Decisions like One Nation One Election, there are many parties that will never agree to it," Yadav told here.
Yadav did not attend the all-party convened by the government on the issue.l
Several issues, including the "one nation, one election" idea, the celebration of the 75 years of independence in 2022 and others were discussed in the meeting which was attended by Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Andhra Pradesh CM YSR Jagan Mohan Reddy and others.
Yadav empathized with the families of people who had lost their lives due to the spread of acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) in Bihar and said the poor families are the worst affected by the outbreak.
"The kids of underprivileged families are dying, almost all the deaths have come from families who do not have money to get their children properly treated. It is heartening to see so many children dying in Bihar," he said.
Yadav criticized the move of the Uttar Pradesh government to pass the Umbrella Act through which 27 universities across the state have come under one Act.
"This is a dangerous thing to do, first they invited investors to the state to open colleges and then they passed this Ordinance. With this kind of act nobody will come forward to open a university here, it seems their intention is to close universities and not to open more," he said.
The UP cabinet on Tuesday approved the draft Uttar Pradesh Private Universities Ordinance 2019 to bring 27 private universities under the ambit of an umbrella act that provides for incorporating the development of nationalism, national integration, secularism and moral values among their objectives.
The draft ordinance also provides for the private universities to commit they would not indulge in any anti-national activity and not allow any such activity on their campus.
( With inputs from ANI )