As Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 341-km Purvanchal Expressway in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, former state chief minister Akhilesh Yadav mocked the BJP for claiming the “achievements of his government” (2012-17) as their own.

“The ribbon came from Lucknow and the scissors came from Delhi; there is a tussle to take credit for work that was done by the SP,” he posted on Twitter.

On Monday, Akhilesh had tweeted a picture of himself at a ceremony to lay the foundation stone of the expressway in 2016. “A picture from the pages of history: When socialists laid the foundation of a modern future for Purvanchal,” he said.

The ambitious Purvanchal Expressway connects the capital Lucknow to Ghazipur on the Ganga at the eastern end of the state. Along with the Greater Noida-Agra and Agra-Lucknow expressways, UP now boasts 800 km of world-class highway across its length from west to east.

Earlier in the day, hours before the prime minister reached Sultanpur to dedicate the Expressway to the people, Akhilesh took to twitter to slam the ruling BJP for tussle to claim credit for the project. “The ribbon came from Lucknow and the scissors from New Delhi. There is a tug-of-war to claim credit for Samajwadi Party’s project ….” a part of his tweet in Hindi said.

Later in the day in a press statement Akhilesh said it would have been better had the Prime Minister, while dedicating the project to the people of the country, mentioned that it was conceived and initiated by the SP. “It was the SP government which announced that budgetary provisions will be made for the expressway while laying its foundation at a gala event held outside UP Vidhan Sabha in December 2016,” he said adding: “It was the SP government which released money for acquisition of land for the project.”

The former UP CM went on to attack the ruling BJP saying that the SP government got the Lucknow – Agra expressway completed within 22 months which was a record in itself. The SP had claimed BJP was five years behind SP in terms of providing landing and take-off facility for fighter aircrafts on Expressway that the ruling BJP tried to showcase by way of an air show. “We had done it five years ago when fighter jets touched down on Lucknow – Agra Expressway,” he said.

Over a dozen IAF planes, including Mirage-2000 fighters and Sukhoi 30s, besides C-130J Super Hercules aircraft, took part in the exercise near Bangarmau about 65 kilometers from Lucknow in December 2016.

(With inputs from agencies)