Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party cuts BJP down to size in Uttar Pradesh, boosts INDIA bloc

Lucknow, June 4

Akhilesh Yadav’s stock rose dramatically on Tuesday with his Samajwadi Party cutting the ruling BJP down to size in Uttar Pradesh.

By the evening, the SP had won or established leads on 37 parliamentary seats. The BJP, which swept the last Lok Sabha polls in UP in 2019 by winning 62 seats on its own, was down to 33. The results were still coming in.

The SP’s performance – supplemented by leads on six seats by INDIA bloc partner Congress – turned out to be a major factor that contained the BJP-led NDA this time.

The BJP had disparagingly referred to the alliance between Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and the SP president as “Do Ladkon Ki Jodi”, but the “UP boys” managed to beat the NDA in Uttar Pradesh, the state which sends the largest number of MPs to Parliament.

Yadav focused on Dalits, Muslims and the non-Yadav Other Backward Classes (OBC). Early in the campaign, he coined the term PDA, revealing the party’s strategy. PDA stands for “Pichchde” (the backward), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities).

By several accounts, Yadav micromanaged the distribution of tickets, which involved some eleventh-hour changes as well.

Only five Yadav candidates – though they all happened to be family members – were fielded in Uttar Pradesh this time, with non-Yadav OBCs too getting the tickets.

In Rampur, he picked Delhi-based cleric Mohibullah Nadvi, ignoring Asim Raja, a favorite of the SP stalwart Azam Khan.

During the campaign, the party also focused on the consolidation of the Muslim vote.

In 2019, the SP had tied up with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, hoping to cash in on her party’s Dalit vote bank.

The break-up from its former partner did no harm to the SP, which called it the BJP’s “B-team”. In 2019, the SP got just five seats while the BSP bagged 10.

This time, after initial hiccups on seat-sharing, the SP set aside 18 of the 80 UP constituencies for the Congress. And the Trinamool Congress was given the Bhadohi Lok Sabha seat.

Yadav and Rahul Gandhi held joint poll meetings in key constituencies, including Amethi and Rae Bareli, signalling strong bonding between the INDIA coalition partners.

And the SP leader’s wife Dimple Yadav held roadshows with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Varanasi, and campaigned in other constituencies. His daughter Aditi Yadav too took part in the SP campaign.

Akhilesh fought from Kannauj and Dimple Yadav from Mainpuri, the constituency represented earlier by SP founder and her father-in-law Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Born in the Yadavs’ native village of Saifai in Etawah district, Akhilesh Yadav studied at the Dholpur Military School in Rajasthan. He got his Bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering from Mysore University and followed it up with a Master’s from Sydney.

In 2000, he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Kannauj in a bye-election. He won again in 2004 and 2009.

He became the chief minister in 2012, when he was just 38.

In a departure from the party’s earlier stance on computers, he launched the “biggest laptop distribution” scheme for students in UP.

His government also took credit for launching projects like the Agra-Lucknow expressway, metrorail, an international stadium and a cancer hospital in Lucknow.

Akhilesh and Dimple Yadav have three children.