UP CM Akhilesh Yadav, who is also the State President of Samajwadi Party (SP) having bicycle as its symbol, recalled his association with the bicycle when he came to Mysore to study engineering at SJCE 17 years ago.

Addressing the students and faculty, Akhilesh, speaking in Hindi, said, “When I first came to Mysore, I had a cycle with me... when the results of first semester were declared, I was at the cycle stand. I had failed. I worked hard and took tuitions from Chamaraj, a professor, which helped me pass in subjects in the subsequent years... because of mehnath (hard work) I passed. Because of cycling hard in the field of politics, people have brought me where I am today... I stand before you now as the Chief Minister of UP, for which I cycled a lot... we have a long way to go and more hard pedalling to be done... if you want to succeed, you will have to put in lot of mehnath... do a lot of cycling.”

Akhilesh had no other option at SJCE but to study Environment Engineering, in which he scored 70% marks in 1996. Becoming emotional after the warm welcome accorded to him by the students, his teachers and batchmates, he said, “I don’t know from where to begin... I will begn with the exam results. In the first sem, I had failed in six subjects out of seven. At first, when I checked on the results posted on the notice board near the Principal’s chamber, I thought I had failed only in one subject but later I realised I had passed only in one subject.”

“When I came to the college for admission, I came alone from UP. After 17 years, I have come with my family,” said Akhilesh, pointing to his wife Dimple Yadav (a Lok Sabha member), twin children Adithi and Arjun and daughter Tina.

Courtesy : Star Of Mysore