 "Opinion polls all about 'money power': Azam Khan")
Slamming a recent opinion poll that has predicted a poor showing by Samajwadi Party (SP) if Assembly elections were to be held now in Uttar Pradesh, senior party leader and minister Azam Khan claimed that such surveys were all about "money power".
"It's all about money power... Whoever spends money, gets the result of the poll in his favour. If money has to be given, we too will give it and the results will be in our favour," Khan told newspersons on Sunday evening at the sidelines of a wedding function.
An opinion poll conducted by a private news channel claimed that if an election is held in the state now, BSP supremo Mayawati would make a comeback. Her party would win 185 seats while SP would be reduced to third with just 80 seats, it had further said.
In the 2012 state elections, the ruling party had won 228 seats in the 403-member Assembly, defeating arch-rival BSP, which had bagged 80 seats.
Questioning the findings of the opinion poll, Azam asked, "How can it be decided in a state as vast as UP one year in advance by talking to 1,700 people as to who will come to power and which party will get how many seats?"
Exuding confidence about his party clinching the 2017 Assembly elections, the UP minister said, "Our government has six years. One year remaining of this term and five of the next term, when it will return to power."
SP has fulfilled all the promises made in its manifesto, he said, adding that the state has witnessed drought in the past three years and the government is giving compensation to farmers.
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"We have made a budgetary provision for extending help to farmers who have not yet got it (compensation)... The Centre's announcement for helping farmers has proved to be totally fake as they have not given funds for it," Khan said.
The Centre had approved a grant of about Rs 2,550 crore for the drought-affected states of Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha on January 6.