Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav hit back at Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s remarks about the Urdu language on Wednesday, accusing him of being indifferent to the state’s education system and overall progress. Yadav questioned the CM’s priorities, particularly regarding the closure of primary schools in Uttar Pradesh, and criticized the government’s failure to address critical educational issues.
Speaking to ANI, Yadav pointed out that across India, 11 lakh primary schools have been shut down, with the majority of them in Uttar Pradesh. “It’s clear that the CM has nothing to do with language or progress. If we look at the record, 11 lakh primary schools have been closed. How many new intermediate schools have been opened? What about polytechnics, ITIs, or engineering institutions? How is the government ensuring the quality of education?” Yadav said. “The government needs to address the fact that the majority of those closed schools are in UP,” he added.
SP leader Mata Prasad Pandey, who is also the Leader of the Opposition, accused CM Yogi Adityanath of unnecessarily turning the issue into a Hindu-Muslim debate. Pandey claimed that the CM had deliberately shifted the focus from the real issue of education to promoting a communal agenda. “Urdu is just a language. The matter raised in the Assembly was about something else entirely, but CM Yogi turned it into a Hindu-Muslim issue. We were opposing the entry of the English language into the Vidhan Sabha, but he used this as an opportunity to push his agenda about Urdu,” Pandey said.
Yadav’s comments came in response to CM Yogi Adityanath’s remarks in the UP Legislative Assembly, where he accused the Samajwadi Party (SP) of promoting Urdu to make children “Maulvis.” “This is the problem with you people. You (SP) will oppose any good work that benefits the state. You will teach your own children in English-medium schools, but if the government wants to provide facilities for other children, you’ll make them study Urdu and want them to become Maulvis,” the CM said.
The debate in the Assembly arose when SP demanded that Urdu be included as one of the languages for translation in the assembly’s proceedings. Currently, the proceedings are available in Awadhi, Braj, Bhojpuri, Bundeli, and English.
