AAP protests against rising crime rate, school fee hike in UP

Lucknow, July 29: The Uttar Pradesh unit of the Aam Adam Party (AAP) held statewide protests against the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government on Saturday, alleging crime under the present dispensation had spiraled out of control.

In the state capital, party workers took out a protest march that converged at the GPO square where leaders submitted a memorandum addressed to the Governor, to district officials.

Senior leader Avinash Tripathi said as per government records, crime in the state had registered a sharp increase of 44 per cent in the past four months of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rule.

"People, specially the women, are feeling unsafe under the present government as the fear of law has vanished from among the minds of criminals since the BJP has come to power" the AAP leader said.

Party leaders also accused the state government of hoodwinking the people with the loan waiver and said that while initially it was aimed to benefit two crore people, the number had come down to 84 lakh now and it is believed that it would be further pruned to 66 lakh farmers only.

Farmers were being harassed by the bank officials and the state government was busy making lofty promises, whereas on grounds nothing was happening, leaders said.

The party also said that the healthcare services had completely crashed and private schools were fleecing the parents with hike in fees every now and then, but the government was mute at all these sad developments.

If the state government did not pay immediate heed to the problems, they would agitate more vigorously in coming days and raise the voice of the common people, the AAP leaders said.