Following the dramatic change in political discourse after the elevation of little known Dalit Congress leader Charanjit Singh Channi as Chief Minister of Punjab, Samajwadi Party is mulling over the idea of entering into pre-poll alliance with the Congress for the 2022 UP Assembly elections.
The last such electoral experiment by the Samajwadi Party ahead of 2017 UP Assembly elections had ended in a disaster for it as its tally was reduced to 48 seats in the UP assembly having a strength of 403. The SP had left 115 seats for the Congress and it could win only seven seats.
The Congress is confident that it’s electoral prospects in UP have got a boost after the masterstroke in Punjab with Dalit leader Charanjit Singh Channi taking oath as the new Chief Minister of Punjab. Channi's appointment as the chief minister is being touted as a very significant step in Punjab politics that will likely have a huge bearing on national politics.
The Congress is seen to have played a masterstroke by making a leader from the Scheduled Caste community the chief minister of a state for the first time, especially a north Indian state. This development has dominated the discourse across political circles. Leaders from the Samajwadi Party, Aam Aadmi Party and other opposition parties have welcomed the appointment of Channi as the Chief Minister of Punjab.
The recent meeting of Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra with Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad was part of a strategy planned by the Congress days before choosing a Dalit Chief Minister for Punjab.
This political development in Punjab comes amid talks of wooing Brahmins and Dalits by SP president Akhilesh Yadav through political mobilisation and Dalit outreach programmes. The Samajwadi Lohia Vahini has started a ‘Village to Village Dalit Samvad’ programme from September 19 in various districts across Uttar Pradesh. In the coming days, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will be holding election rallies and visit poll-bound constituencies from September 29 to October 23. During this time the talk of forming an alliance between the SP and the Congress will become clear.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has come up with a fresh political slogan 'Nayi Hawa Hai, Nayi SP Hai' to win the 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls. With this slogan, Akhilesh has made a shift from the MY (Muslim-Yadav) caste equations used by him and SP founder and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, to win state elections in the past. Akhilesh Yadav is upping the ante by following a soft Hindutva approach to counter the Hindutva ideology of the ruling Bharatiya Janata
Party.
Samajwadi Party sources, however, said, “The party has learnt from its mistakes in 2017 elections and this time if the party decides to forge alliance with the Congress it will be after detailed deliberations on seat sharing.”
A SP leader said, “There will be no last-minute change of constituencies and everything will be decided much ahead of the elections in 2022.”