Samajwadi Chief and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today suggested Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath should also dole out the lucrative Yash Bharti awards conferred by the Uttar Pradesh government to people close to him if he feels like.
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“You may also confer these awards to people close to you, we will not stop you”, said Yadav.
It takes tremendous amount of audacity to be completely unapologetic for such blatant favouritism. Earlier, an RTI had revealed officers, friends and family members close to Akhilesh were given Yash Bharti awards, which were initially started by his father Mulayam Singh Yadav back in 1994.
Amongst the winners of Yash Bharti awards during the Akhilesh Yadav government are
the TV anchor who covered the Saifai Mahotsav for the Akhilesh Yadav government; an officer at the Chief Minister’s Office who recommended his own name; a researcher who listed his two-month “field work” in Meghalaya as an achievement; self-styled founder of “the revolutionary ideology of manufacturing unique and handmade clothes based on jyotish and psychology;”
As many as 200 people were given the ‘lifetime’ award, during 2012 – 2017, of which 142 winners were directly or indirectly related to Samajwadi Party.
Officers and friends close to Akhilesh were awarded. Awards were also given on recommendation of his uncle Shivpal Yadav and other Samajwadi Party leaders. Archana Satish, one of the recipients of Yash Bharti awards, was compering the 2016 Yash Bharti Awards in October, 2016 when the “generous hearted” then CM Akhilesh Yadav, decided to confer her with the award too.
Started in 1994 by Mulayam Singh Yadav government, Mayawati had stopped these awards when she was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. However, the same were resumed by Akhilesh and in 2015, along with a bouquet, a shawl and Rs. 11 lakh cash, a monthly pension of Rs. 50,000 was started.
Following complaints regarding the arbitrary nature in which the awards were conferred, Yogi Adityanath government will be reviewing the awards since honouring underserving people lowers dignity of the award. Moreover, the Rs. 50,000 pension from the state government to the awardees has also been stopped by the Yogi Government.