Buoyed by the success of the cycle yatra across the state on Thursday Samajwadi Party claimed that it is on the way to regain its relevance in state politics and emerge as a formidable challenge to the Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2022 UP Assembly elections.
The cycle yatra to celebrate the birth anniversary of socialist leader Janeshwar Mishra is seen as an attempt by the SP to reach out to the Brahman community. The SP claims that the Brahmins are sore with the BJP and are searching for a credible alternative.
Senior Samajwadi Party leaders, however, have a word of caution, saying “it would be naive to expect any miracles to happen in the polls as the party was perceived to be missing in action in the state's political scene for the last four years, particularly during the first and second waves of the pandemic”.
The rank and file of the party had been complaining that the party chief was inaccessible and persistently refused to hold any programmes at the block and district levels.
Mata Prasad Pandey, former Speaker of UP Assembly, however defended the party chief saying. “The BJP government has been unfair with the opposition, denying us permission to hold rallies or meetings”.
This is true only for the duration of the pandemic. Yadav, however, has been absent from the political scene much longer. It started with the shock of the BJP’s massive win in the assembly polls of 2017.
Those who were once close to him say the loss was so massive that Yadav, instead of turning the lens inwards, chose to blame everyone around him for misleading him.
“He has grown distrustful of everyone who has worked hard for the party. He believes everyone is out to get him,” said a SP leader.
On the Muslims support, Akhilesh Yadav is facing challenge on two counts—failure r to launch movement for the release of party MP Mohammad Azam Khan and growing popularity of All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP Asaduddin Owaisi, among the Muslim youth.
An elderly SP leader pointed out, “His (Akhilesh’s) father Mulayam Singh built the party from the scratch and Akhilesh Yadav is the benefactor of his father’s years of struggle.”
Moreover, he said, Akhilesh’s style of functioning was vastly different from his father as he was not accessible to the rank and file of the party.
The party leaders are also uncomfortable with the boastful claim of their boss that SP will win 400 seats in the 2022 assembly elections. The best performance of the SP so far since its inception was in 2012 when it won 224 seats in UP Assembly by polling 29.1 per cent of total polled votes. The BJP during the last three elections -- 2014 Lok Sabha, 2017 UP Assembly and 2019 Lok Sabha --- elections crossed the threshold of 35 per cent votes and its vote share was over 40 per cent in the 2017 UP assembly polls.
“It’s going to be an uphill task for the Samajwadi Party to fill the huge gap of over 10 per cent of votes in 2022 elections,” a SP leader said.