The Bundelkhand region – which is divided between Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh – is battling famine. Thanks to consecutive droughts and hailstorms which have destroyed crops, the situation is so bad that farmers are surviving on a diet of chapatis and salt.
But that isn’t worrying the 17 MLAs from Uttar Pradesh, who have left for a multi-nation tour for 18 days, where they’ll be enjoying shopping and sight-seeing – all sponsored by the state government. They’ll return by April 11.
Of course, this is officially a “study tour”.
Led by the Assembly Speaker, the 17 MLAs are touring Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Pictures of them enjoying the snow in Japan are circulating on the social media.
Out of these 17 MLAs, most are from the Samajwadi Party (SP), namely Azam Khan, Sangram Singh Yadav, Ambika Chaudhary, Md. Rehan Naeem, Omprakash Singh, Anup Gupta, Abhishek Mishra, Bhagwat Saran Gangwar, Aruna Kumari Kori, Pradeep Kumar Dubey, Yogesh Pratap Singh.
The list includes Pradeep Mathur from the Congress, Dalveer Singh from the Rashtriya Lok Dal and independent MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh aka Raja Bhaiya, according to reports by IBNLive and Dainik Bhaskar.
However, UP Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey told IBNLive that the trip is a “study tour” to help the MLAs understand the drought situation better to tackle it.
Feature image source: Screenshot
