UP CM Akhikesh Yadav off to Australia on holiday

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is off on a brief tour of Australia from where he had did his Masters in environmental engineering.

Yadav, who left Lucknow on Friday afternoon, was understood to have flown to Australia in the early hours of Saturday.

While there was no official communication about his trip, sources close to the Yadav household said, "The chief minister is on a private trip along with his family and will be back on July 11."

He is accompanied by his wife Dimple, the newly-elected Lok Sabha MP from Kannauj, as well his three little children.

"This is like a family holiday," said the source, while adding, "after all he did deserve a break after slogging it out not only for the past three

months since he rode on to the top office but for more than a year since he had been working to turn the fortunes of the Samajwadi Party."

It is said that the holiday was planned suddenly on the insistence of his kids, who wanted to see the institution where their 'papa' had studied.

Even for Dimple, this was her first trip to Australia.

Yadav, who turned 39 on July 1, is understood to have planned a visit to his alma mater -- the University of Sydney, where he did his masters degree in environmental engineering.

It is learnt that the Australian High Commissioner Peter Varghese, who had met the UP chief minister during his visit to New Delhi on June 22, had also extended an invitation to Akhilesh to re-visit Australia.