LUCKNOW, May 23 -- Amidst a severe heatwave, prolonged power outages across UP have escalated into a political flashpoint, with both opposition leaders and ruling BJP legislators flagging failing electricity infrastructure, months before the state assembly elections. While opposition parties have stepped up attacks on the government over outages, legislators from the ruling camp have publicly flagged power supply related issues in their constituencies. On Friday, BJP MLA (Lucknow East) OP Srivastava wrote to energy minister AK Sharma, raising concerns over alleged undeclared power cuts in his constituency. Recently, BJP MLA (Sarojini Nagar, Lucknow) Rajeshwar Singh and Lucknow North MLA Neeraj Bora also wrote to the minister regarding outages. Leader of opposition in the UP Assembly Mata Prasad Pandey also wrote to the UPPCL MD regarding prolonged outages in Siddharthnagar district. The issue also drew sharp reactions from two former CMs. In a post on X, BSP president Mayawati said inadequate electricity supply and outages during severe heat had made life difficult for the poor, middle class, farmers, small traders and workers and urged the government to take immediate corrective measures and improve long-term supply through. Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav wrote on X that while electricity demand and tariffs were increasing, supply was not keeping pace and sought to question the government's planning regarding new generation capacity. UP Congress Committee president Ajay Rai demanded that the state government comes out with a white paper detailing power production before 2017 and now. "People must know as to how much new power generation the BJP government added to the grid in the last nine years of its rule in UP," he said. Meanwhile, the UP Rajya Vidyut Upbhokta Parishad on Friday moved the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission through a public importance proposal, seeking intervention to address the power situation. "Repeated breakdowns and delays in attending faults, rather than availability of power alone, were aggravating consumer distress," parishad chairman Avdhesh Kumar Verma said. Responding to the concerns, energy minister AK. Sharma said he welcomed suggestions from ruling party legislators and opposition leaders and assured that all possible measures would be taken to address public grievances. Sharma said power demand had reached historically high levels both nationally and in Uttar Pradesh. "During the Samajwadi Party government between 2012 and 2017, average power demand in UP used to be around 13,000mw. Today, it has crossed 30,000mw and we are meeting the entire demand unlike during the SP and BSP regimes when large demand-supply gaps led to extensive scheduled and unscheduled power cuts across urban and rural areas. Protests, demonstrations and public anger over electricity shortages had then become a recurring feature," he said over phone from Mau. Targeting the opposition, Sharma said electricity had become a convenient political issue but added that critics were overlooking the situation during their own tenure. He maintained that UP was not facing a demand-supply gap and attributed much of the disruption to local breakdowns and stress on the transmission and distribution network. "Some outages are occurring because of local breakdowns, often arising from overloading caused by a mismatch between planned load and actual consumption. We are looking into it," he said....