Lucknow, Jan 9 (PTI) Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday took at swipe at the Yogi Adityanath government over the codeine-laced cough syrup racket, saying “mafia raj” is not just thriving under the BJP but is reaching people’s homes in sealed bottles.
His remarks comes in the wake of a raid at the residence of a close associate of alleged cough syrup trafficking kingpin Shubham Jaiswal.
Sharing a news clip on X that claimed that Jaiswal sent 2.24 crore bottles of syrup to Bangladesh, former UP chief minister Yadav alleged that the BJP government was complicit in the multi-crore racket and was a beneficiary of the “black money” generated from it.
“People initially thought it was a local crime. When the first layer was peeled off, it turned out to be a statewide crime, then another layer revealed it to be nationwide, and now it has emerged to be an Asia-level crime,” the SP chief said on X.
“The mafia raj in Uttar Pradesh has not ended, rather it has been promoted. There is a BJP ‘mega-mafia raj’ in UP, which is reaching people’s homes in ‘bottle-sealed’ form and is proving deadly,” he said.
Yadav said the billions generated in black has the participation of those in power (‘sattadhari ki bhagiadhari’).
Describing the political situation in the state in cricketing terms, he added, “The BJP is playing the final phase of its final innings. Its overs are now ‘over’. The entire BJP team is getting ‘all out’ even before the match ends.” The issue of illegal trade in codeine-based cough syrup has led to sustained political sparring between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and opposition parties, particularly the SP.
The matter was also raised during the Winter session of the state assembly, with SP members staging protests and disruptions inside and outside the House.
On the very first day of the session on December 19, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath told reporters that a state-level special investigation team (SIT) with officers from the Uttar Pradesh Police and the Food Safety and Drug Administration (FSDA) is investigating the matter.
Adityanath added in the assembly that the government has registered 79 cases, named 225 people and arrested 78 accused pertaining to the cough syrup issue.
Raids have been conducted at 134 firms, and transactions linked to this racket are under investigation.
He said the Food Safety and Drug Administration department had tested more than 1,000 cough syrup samples in the state. PTI CDN SKY SKY
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