A drone crashes in UP village, Akhilesh says ‘people thought a stray missile', lambasts BJP govt

AN remote-controlled aircraft or drone on reportedly existence tried by a buck private company crashed in an agricultural field in a village in Saifai, Uttar Pradesh, on Saturday, triggering panic at a time when news cycles are dominated by the US-Iran war in West Asia.Former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav lambasted the state's BJP government for not giving prior information about such trials to the public.“People thought it might be some missile that had strayed from the war zone and fallen here,” he wrote on X, along with a short video clip of the drone. “If this was part of any government test or experiment, the citizens of the state should have been informed and alerted in advance. When there’s no certainty whether the drone will fly or not, why take the risk of flying it in a populated area? If it had fallen on a nearby settlement instead of the field, this accident could have caused loss of life and property,” the Samajwadi Party president added, in his post written originally in Hindi.He called for an an investigation, and demanded that the government “after assessing the economic loss to the farmer’s field and the mental trauma caused, provide the farmer with appropriate compensation”.He also took a dig: “The people of Saifai are saying: if the BJP folks can’t even fly a drone, how will they fly planes from that airstrip in Saifai, whose runway the BJP has deliberately neglected without maintenance out of political spite?” Saifai happens to be his birthplace too.What authorities saidThe Etawah district police later replied to his post: “Following information regarding a prototype drone of a private company under the Saifai area falling during a trial in village Nandpur, the drone's parts have been secured from a safety perspective. There has been no loss of life of any kind, and the current situation is normal.”'Blaming war for everything'Earlier, in another statement referencing the US-Israel attacks on Iran, and the resultant West Asia oil supply crisis, Akhilesh Yadav on Friday alleged that the BJP was blaming the conflict for a range of domestic issues in an attempt to hide policy failures."These people may now even say that the Ganga is not getting cleaned because of the war in West Asia," he remarked.He also said the government was diverting attention from farmers' issues and bringing up unrelated matters.Referring to fertiliser shortages, he said that farmers had to stand in long queues and "now such shortages could be attributed to the Iran-Israel conflict".To a question related to foreign policy and India's ties with the United States, Yadav said he would not like to comment in detail as his knowledge on the subject was limited, but noted that the influence of the US was visible in many areas."If one studies past speeches of leaders, including those from the opposition, after Independence, it would be clear what kind of foreign policy India should have pursued and how it has evolved over time," the leader of the third largest party in Lok Sabha noted.