Akhilesh Yadav criticised the Uttar Pradesh government for plans to commercialise Lucknow’s largest park for private events.
New Delhi
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday strongly condemned the Uttar Pradesh government’s reported decision to open Lucknow’s Janeshwar Mishra Park—touted as Asia’s largest urban park—for large-scale private weddings and events starting January 2026. The remarks followed the circulation of a promotional poster for a proposed venue called Janeshwar Greens, which advertises expansive lawns and high-capacity event facilities within the park.
According to the promotional material, the proposed commercial section would cover nearly 3 lakh sq ft of event lawns capable of hosting up to 10,000 guests and accommodating 3,000 vehicles. Yadav argued that such a scale of commercial activity would irreversibly damage the park’s ecological balance and diminish its character as a public green space.
The SP leader claimed the project would replace open greenery with post-event waste, noise, pollution and excessive crowding, transforming a vital ecological asset into a profit-driven property. Yadav, who inaugurated the park in 2014 during his tenure as Chief Minister, alleged that the move marked the beginning of what he described as a pattern of greed-driven encroachment on public land by the BJP-led government.
He warned that if the commercialisation proceeded unchecked, it could set a precedent for similar takeovers of community parks across Lucknow and Uttar Pradesh.
In a sharply worded post on X, Yadav urged the people of Lucknow and Uttar Pradesh, including migrants, environmental activists and daily park users, to unite in a collective, non-political campaign to safeguard the city’s green spaces. He stressed that residents had a fundamental right to clean air and greenery and called for a robust citizens’ movement to resist what he termed an assault on public spaces.