Giving laptops to girls cost us LS polls: MSY

Lucknow: In an embarrassment to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav blamed his free laptop scheme for the party's debacle in the Lok Sabha polls.

Mulayam Singh said he had always opposed the distribution of laptops to Class XII students.

"We distributed the laptops and people of the state heard the campaign speeches of Narendra Modi on these very laptops. They were impressed, and we lost the polls," he said.

In the 2012 assembly elections, Akhilesh Yadav had promised free laptops to the students. The government has in the last two years distributed over 27 lakh laptops among students.

Akhilesh Yadav, however, claims that the laptop scheme as a major achievement of his government.

SP had 22 seats in the outgoing Lok Sabha but won from only five constituencies in the general election this year.

‘Veil system, an evil tradition’
Mulayam kicked up a controversy by dubbing the practice of "purdah" (veil) as an "evil tradition", saying it should be scrapped as it hindered progress of women.

"This system did not exist in the distant past. Did Sita or Draupadi ever don a veil? Some circumstances cropped up later because of which women had to use veil," he said at a national convention organised by SP's women wing at the party office here.

"Now women have donned uniform. It is time for you to decide about this veil system...Such evil traditions should end," he said.

Meanwhile, UP Minister Azam Khan has alleged that BJP is trying to spill the blood of Muslims in the name of the Ram temple.

Azam was hinting at the Gujarat riots of 2002, which happened when Modi was the chief minister of the state.