Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath on Sunday said his government was not averse to implementing the National Register of Citizens in the state in a phased manner. He also congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah for the decision to implement NRC in Assam, The Indian Express reported.

“This is an important and a brave decision of implementing the [Supreme] court’s order,” Adityanath told the newspaper in an interview. “I believe that we should congratulate the prime minister and the home minister for this. These things are being implemented phase-wise and I feel that when Uttar Pradesh will need an NRC, we will do so. In the first phase, it has been Assam and the way it is being implemented there, it can be an example for us.”

The final NRC list was published in Assam on August 31, comprising over three crore people. However, it excluded around 19 lakh individuals.

Adityanath also said that his government would respect the verdict of the Supreme Court in the Ayodhya case. The court is currently hearing a batch of petitions on the dispute after a mediation panel it had set up failed to resolve the matter.

‘Have prepared road map for economic growth’

Meanwhile, Adityanath told the Hindustan Times that the state government had prepared a road map to tackle the economic crisis and turn Uttar Pradesh into a $1 trillion economy. “The pace at which we were working, it would have taken UP 12 years to become a trillion-dollar economy,” he said. “We have now increased our economic speed and can achieve the target in six years.”

The chief minister said that despite the global slowdown, investors were interested in the state. “When I took charge in March 2017, neither I nor any one from my team had any experience to perform in this field,” he said. “For us, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been the best mentor and shepherd, who has guided us from time to time towards our economic objectives.” The chief minister said the state government was constantly in touch with the prime minister to seek his advice.

Adityanath denied there was a shortage of power in western Uttar Pradesh. “There is no shortage of power,” he said. “We are going to double the power production as compared to 2016, just as our consumption has also doubled during the same period. Earlier, the governments in Lucknow would select few districts for adequate power distribution while leaving the entire state in dark. In April 2017, we decided that district headquarters will have 24-hour power, tehsil headquarters were given 20 hours, and rural area was allocated 18 hours of power.”

The chief minister credited the entire government machinery for the success of schemes for providing houses, toilets and electricity to the poor.

On tackling corruption, Adityanath said: “I have retired or dismissed 600 officials in the past 30 months on this count. I can only give one or two chances to officials to mend their behaviour or else they have to face law.” He claimed that if the leader of a government is clean, it will have an impact on the entire bureaucracy.

He also claimed that even an alliance between Opposition parties cannot prevent the BJP from winning the upcoming bye-elections to 13 Assembly seats.

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