Lucknow: After the results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the attitude of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav seems to have changed. He is constantly attacking the BJP. Meanwhile, he is seen expanding the PDA. For this, Akhilesh has started connecting Brahmins to his party.
He gave the post of Leader of Opposition in the UP Assembly to senior SP leader and former Assembly Speaker Mata Prasad Pandey in his place.
After this, the Samajwadi Party adopted an aggressive stance on the Harishankar Tiwari case, not only this, now many big programs were organized on the birth anniversary of Janeshwar Mishra, one of the founding members of the party, which shows that Akhilesh Yadav has started an exercise to shift the vote bank of BJP before the 2027 UP Assembly elections.
Political experts are considering these decisions of Akhilesh as an exercise for the preparations for 2027 along with the by-elections to be held on 10 seats in UP, so that instead of linking Akhilesh with Muslim Yadav or any other particular class, a party should be made that has a hold on all sections. Akhilesh Yadav knows that if he wants to achieve great success from Western UP to Purvanchal, then like BJP, Samajwadi Party will have to strengthen its foothold in all sections.
In fact, Akhilesh Yadav surprised everyone by making Mata Prasad Pandey the leader of opposition in UP assembly. Akhilesh Yadav tried to appease Brahmins by making Mata Prasad Pandey the leader of opposition. Not only this, he was angry on the destruction of the platform made for the statue of Harishankar Tiwari, a Brahmin leader of Purvanchal. Akhilesh Yadav also tried to corner the Yogi government through Harishankar Tiwari.
These steps of Akhilesh Yadav are surprising because SP was already running on the backward-dalit-minority (PDA) formula before the Lok Sabha elections. It was considered an expansion of SP’s Muslim-Yadav vote bank. Due to SP’s PDA formula, the results in the Lok Sabha elections were also better. SP had pushed BJP far behind by winning 37 seats. How big was this victory of SP, it can be understood in this way that due to this defeat in Uttar Pradesh, BJP could not get majority on its own. SP gave the biggest blow to BJP in Faizabad.
Ayodhya comes in this seat. BJP had sought votes in the whole country on the basis of Ram temple being built in Ayodhya, but it lost in Ayodhya itself. This victory of SP was discussed all over the country. PDA was said to be behind this victory in the Lok Sabha elections.
PDA was not the only factor behind this victory of SP. It also got the support of those upper caste voters, who are angry with BJP. A large number of Brahmin voters are in this. Brahmin population in the state is considered to be around 10 percent. Brahmin votes are quite effective in more than 100 seats of the state. Among these, the area of Purvanchal is prominent.
It is difficult to ignore the political power of Brahmins in the politics of Uttar Pradesh. It is believed that Mayawati’s majority government formed in the state in 2007 was a miracle of her social engineering. Brahmins had a greater contribution in this. Satish Mishra played an important role in this. Due to this, he remained close to Mayawati for a long time.
The role of the Brahmin community was also important in the formation of the Samajwadi Party government in 2012 and the BJP’s full majority government in 2017. In such a situation, Akhilesh Yadav has started feeling that if the Brahmins also join him, then the SP government can be easily formed in 2027, as much as he has benefited from PDA politics.
