Political leader Akhilesh Yadav has taken a sharp dig at a tree plantation drive in a post on the social media platform X. In the post, he claimed that despite tall claims of planting crores of saplings, only one tree was actually planted, and that too on a stage, while the rest would exist only in paper files. The post was shared from the handle @yadavakhilesh and quickly drew a large number of reactions.
What Akhilesh Yadav wrote in his post
Akhilesh Yadav opened his post with biting sarcasm, writing that even tree plantation had now been encountered. He went on to say that people should be thankful that at least one tree was planted, even if it was planted on a stage, because the remaining 34,99,99,999 trees would only be planted in paper files. With this figure, he directly questioned how it would even be possible to actually plant such a massive number of trees on the ground when the campaign's target itself runs into crores. According to him, planting a single tree on stage completed the formality of the entire campaign, while the rest of the numbers would simply remain recorded on paper.
Allegation of a corruption scheme and election funding
In the post, Akhilesh Yadav described the entire drive not as tree plantation but as what he called a corruption plantation, using the coined term bhrashtaropan. He alleged that under the cover of planting trees, a parallel system was actually being built to raise election funds. He linked the campaign directly to corruption, saying the whole event was limited to optics and paperwork. Toward the end of the post, he tried to connect it to what he called the double engine government, though the sentence trails off before completing, as the post ends with a link that likely carried a video or other material. In Indian politics, the term double engine government is generally used to describe a situation where the same party is in power at both the central and a state government, though because the sentence in the post is incomplete, its exact reference remains unclear.
Questions raised over symbolic events
Akhilesh Yadav's post has reignited a debate that often surfaces around large scale government tree plantation drives, where a token sapling or two planted on a stage or at a single spot ends up generating photographs and headlines for the entire campaign. His claim is that the actual number of trees is neither planted nor maintained on the ground at that scale, leaving a wide gap between official figures and ground reality. Based on this, he presented the entire event as paperwork dressed up as achievement and as a channel for raising election funds.
Public reaction
Akhilesh Yadav's post triggered a mixed set of reactions on social media. A number of users agreed with his allegations, calling it a case of optics and paper statistics in government schemes. At the same time, a large section accused him of criticizing without verifying facts and suggested that his social media team should check details before posting. Some users sarcastically asked whether the trees or saplings planted at the event would still be alive months later. A few reactions were lighthearted and mocking in tone, while others echoed his allegations in a more poetic style. Overall, the post has sparked a fresh debate over the ground reality behind government tree plantation campaigns.
