Claiming the success of  caste-based PDA (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) social coalition, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday said that negative politics has ended and the people’s issues and concerns have triumphed.
The Samajwadi Party also put up a hoarding at the gate of the party office, proclaiming Akhilesh Yadav as ‘Ayodhya Ke Avadhesh’.
Talking to mediapersons after meeting the newly-elected MPs at the Samajwadi Party office here on Saturday, Akhilesh Yadav said: “This is a victory of INDIA and the strategy of PDA. The Samajwadi Party has emerged as the third largest party of the country. The party has got the support of the people in a big way.”
“At the same time, the responsibility of the ‘Samajwadis’ has also increased — like raising the issues pertaining to the public and keeping the interest of the public in mind, while putting up our views. The SP’s endeavour in the parliament will be to serve the people at the maximum,” he said.
“Negative politics has come to an end, while positive politics has begun. The issues pertaining to people have triumphed,” said Akhilesh, who has been elected to Lok Sabha from Kannauj.
In the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections, the Samajwadi Party won 37 out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, while its ally Congress won six seats. The BJP managed to win 33 seats, and its allies RLD and Apna Dal (Sonelal) two seats and one seat respectively. Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) won one seat, while the BSP failed to win even a single seat.
Senior party leaders Shivpal Singh Yadav and Ramgopal Yadav were also present along with newly-elected MPs Dimple Yadav, Dharmendra Yadav, Aditya Yadav, Akshaya Yadav, and Afzal Ansari.
After a string of poll reverses since 2017, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has finally delivered with his party putting in its best-ever performance in the Lok Sabha elections to win 37 of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh and emerging the single-largest party in the country’s most populous state where it reduced the ruling BJP to 33 seats from 62 in 2019. The SP emerged the third largest party in the country after the BJP and the Congress.
Yadav and his party, leading the INDIA bloc in Uttar Pradesh, dealt the biggest blow to the ruling BJP nationally as it overtook the NDA with the SP-Congress alliance winning 43 seats. The NDA secured 36 seats in the state. The SP’s previous best Lok Sabha poll performance was in 2004 when it had won 35 seats in Uttar Pradesh.
In 2024, the SP’s strike rate was the highest among the big parties as it won 37 of the 62 seats it contested, while the BJP could win only 33 of the 76 it contested in Uttar Pradesh.  Among all the political parties in the country, the SP took the biggest leap with a seven-fold increase from its five-seat tally in 2019.
In 2004, when the SP won 35 seats, its founder Mulayam Singh Yadav headed the government in Uttar Pradesh. Now, the party has achieved success despite having been out of power in the state for seven years. The SP attained a 33.59% vote share in 2024 as against 18.11% in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh.
In the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, the SP’s vote share was 32.1% and the tally went up to 111 from 47 in 2017, laying the foundation for the 2024 performance.
In the 2022 polls, the SP began expanding beyond its MY (Muslim-Yadav) vote bank to stitch together a caste coalition of non-Yadavs, OBCs, Yadavs, Dalits, and Muslims.