Lucknow, July 11 (IANS): Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday announced that the Lucknow Metro will begin running before the 2017 state assembly elections.

Addressing reporters after the launch of the uniform for the Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation (LMRC) staffers, the chief minister said that political opponents who were accusing his government of selling a pipe dream have now been silenced after seeing the fast pace of work.

Attributing the speed of the work on the metro rail project to the team spirit of officials and agencies involved, the chief minister said that he was very hopeful that the Lucknow Metro would begin plying in much lesser time than the Jaipur Metro.

"Beginning of the metro rail would decongest the city traffic and bring relief to commuters who are for now faced with long jams," Yadav further said.

"The parliamentary constituency of the union home minister will soon have Metro Rail and I am pretty confident that the parliamentary constituency of the prime minister of India will also soon have it," he said in an apparent dig at the BJP, which has been speaking of development as its main plank.

In future, he announced, the state government proposed to run metro rail in Kanpur, Agra, Varanasi and Meerut.

Yadav also recalled that when the metro rail's foundation stone was being laid, his father and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had sought the date of inauguration and added that very soon he will give him the date.

The uniform of the LMRC has been designed by the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Rae Bareli.