Caste survey and the strategy for next year’s Lok Sabha elections were on the agenda of the state executive meeting of Samajwadi Party held here on Wednesday.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav presided over the first meeting of the state executive held after its formation in August. The SP had dissolved its state and national executives after its defeat in the 2022 UP assembly polls.
SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said that the Lok Sabha polls, caste survey and ways to bolster the party’s support base among the backwards, Dalits and minority (for which Yadav has coined the term PDA) were discussed in the meeting.
Akhilesh Yadav will give the mantra for victory in the Lok Sabha elections to the party leaders in the meeting, he said, adding that the SP aims to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party in all 80 parliamentary constituencies in Uttar Pradesh.
About the party’s preparation for the Lok Sabha election, he said, “The SP is working continuously and fighting on issues of public interest. The party organisation is being streamlined and is being formed at the booth levels.”
Asked whether the SP would be part of the INDIA bloc in the general elections in view of its strained relations with the Congress over seat sharing for the Madhya Pradesh polls, Chaudhary said, “There is an alliance for the Lok Sabha elections and this is certain.”
Accusing the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh of neglecting every section of society, Chaudhary said that the condition of farmers in the state had become very bad.
“Paddy is not being procured. The dues of sugarcane farmers are still outstanding. The farmers of Uttar Pradesh are devastated and the youths are not getting employment,” the SP leader said.
He claimed that in the past six years, no work was done in UP by the BJP government. “Whatever work is seen on the ground was done by Akhilesh Yadav during the SP rule,” Chaudhary said.