Azamgarh (UP), Mar 3

The mafia serving time in jail will be released if the Samajwadi Party comes to power in Uttar Pradesh, Home Minister Amit Shah said on Thursday, adding that the Akhilesh Yadav-led party and the BSP have tasted defeat in the first five rounds of polling.

Shah also announced free electricity to farmers, gas cylinders to women on the eve of festivities and scooters to young women, if voted to power again in the state.

I had promised that the rule of mafia will end in Uttar Pradesh, and in five years, all mafia have been finished. Atiq Ansari and Mukhtar Ansari are in jail under the Yogi Adityanath government. It will not be the same if the SP comes to power in UP and such elements will be released, Shah said during an an election rally here.

The SP and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have been defeated in the first five rounds of polling and now the BJP needs votes to ensure that it gets more than 300 seats, the home minister said.

Hitting out at Akhilesh Yadav, Shah said the SP chief is wearing black glasses so he can see only darkness.

Hailing the Yogi Adityanath government, he said there has been a sharp decline in the crime rate in the last five years.

In order to woo women voters and farmers, Shah announced that a free cylinder will be given to every house on the occasion of Holi and Diwali and that free electricity will be provided to farmers for five years if the BJP reassumes power.

He also announced that jobs will be given to the youth on basis of their qualification while he promised free scooters for young women.

Hitting out at political rivals, Shah said the opposition parties kept Article 370, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, for over seven decades.

Our government withdrew it and nobody dared to throw a single stone (in protest), he said.

Azamgarh will go to polls in the last phase of the ongoing Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections on March 7.