BAREILLY/PILIBHIT/SHAHJAHANPUR: It was a day of rallies in western Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav embarked on a whistle-stop campaign on Friday in the Rohilkhand region , where he addressed six rallies two in Pilibhit, three in Shahjahanpur and one in Bareilly even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed one in Bijnor.While Modi maintained a studied silence on demonetisation, Akhilesh in a scathing attack on the PM, said, "A woman delivered her infant in the ATM queue. People named him 'Khajanchi' (cashier). I later enquired about the incident and called upon the family and provided them with monetary help."Addressing a public rally at Faridpur, the Samajwadi Party leader dubbed demonetisation an attack on poor and marginalized class who had to suffer in queues while the ones with black money easily got away from the so-called crackdown on such hoarders.In a veiled attack on BSP supremo Mayawati, Akhilesh terms her tenure as 'pattar ki sarkar' referring to the elephant statues that were installed at many places in the state during her tenure as CM from 2007 and 2012. "These statues are mute spectators, just like her government," said Akhilesh amid cheers from the crowd at the Ramleela grounds in Faridpur, Bareilly.The SP leader was in Bareilly to campaign in favour of sitting MLA Siyaram Sagar. The latter's candidature was put on hold and cleared at the last moment over speculation that Akhilesh had objected to his candidature.Speaking at another rally at Government Inter College in Pilibhit, Akhilesh touched several local issues including the recent tiger attacks and death of five people living near Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR) and regularization of Bengali refugees.Expressing concerns over the killing of five villagers by big cats since November, CM promised to provide infrastructural facilities to PTR to prevent straying of big cats out of wild and to deploy a special task force at PTR if SP-Congress alliance formed a government in UPOn the problems of Bengali refugees regarding the regularization of their lease deed of lands, their declaration under schedule caste category in UP, Akhilesh assured the community of prompt redressal of all their grievances after formation of an SP-Congress alliance government in the state.Akhilesh also addressed three public gatherings in Shahjahanpur district. Promising to bring more development to the state once the SP-Congress are in power, he said, "Youths listen to songs on mobile phone rather than using it for banking but laptops distributed by us can certainly be used for banking," the SP leader said.(With inputs from Keshav Agarwalin Pilibhit and KanwardeepSinghin Shahjahanpur)

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