When Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Purvanchal Expressway in Uttar Pradesh’s Sultanpur in November last year, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the principal Opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) vied with each other in taking credit for this major infrastructure project.
In the state Assembly elections four months later, the BJP won the polls comfortably, winning seats across the state. The SP remained a distant runner-up, but it won a majority of seats in the districts that the eastern UP expressway traverses.
The 341-km-long Purvanchal Expressway runs through nine districts in UP, starting from Lucknow and traversing Barabanki, Amethi, Ayodhya, Sultanpur, Ambedkar Nagar, Azamgarh and Mau before terminating in Ghazipur.
