The political board has already started being laid in Uttar Pradesh regarding the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav is changing his political track to compete with BJP and is now focusing on the politics of Bahujan instead of Sarvajan. On one hand, SP General Secretary Swami Prasad Maurya is taking an aggressive stand regarding some verses of Ramcharitmanas, while on the other hand, Akhilesh Yadav is busy in setting the agenda of ‘Shudra Politics’.
Due to this new political attitude of Samajwadi Party and Akhilesh Yadav, the political uneasiness of the upper caste leaders of the party is increasing, because neither they got attention in the party organization nor Akhilesh is giving importance. In such a situation, the leaders of SP’s Brahmin and Thakur community are not able to fit themselves with the new agenda of the party, while Akhilesh is also not able to compete with BJP by following the path of Sarvajan with M-Y equation. In such a situation, a step has been taken in the direction of Bahujan politics.
Did not get special attention in SP organization
When Akhilesh Yadav formed his national team, along with Yadav-Muslims, Dalit-OBC castes were given importance, but the upper castes did not get much importance. Among the 64 faces included in the National Executive, 11 Yadavs, 8 Muslims, 5 Kurmis, 7 Dalits, 4 Brahmins and 16 OBCs have been included. No leader from Thakur and Brahmin community was made the national general secretary. For the first time in the history of SP, upper caste leaders did not get the post of general secretary. Brahmin and Thakur community leaders have been given the post of member and secretary in the National Executive. Not only this, Juhi Singh, who was part of the previous national executive, did not get a place this time.
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Akhilesh doing politics of Bahujan
Akhilesh Yadav has been continuously calling for bringing Ambedkarites and Lohiyaites on a single platform since 2022 assembly elections. Now leaders with BSP background have been given important responsibility in the National Executive. Making Swami Prasad Maurya, who opened the front on Ramcharitmanas, the general secretary, the way Akhilesh Yadav said to move forward on the caste census, it is clear in which direction the politics of SP is going.
The SP president had gone to a religious function in Lucknow, where BJP workers created ruckus. After this, Akhilesh Yadav said in a media statement that he is a Shudra, that’s why the people of BJP are opposing him. Akhilesh Yadav while questioning said that Yogi ji should tell whether he is Shudra or not? After this, a hoarding was put up outside the Samajwadi Party office, on which it is written that say with pride that we are Shudra. In this way, Akhilesh has taken the politics of Swami Prasad Maurya two steps ahead.
uneasiness of SP’s upper caste leader
The way SP’s politics is centering around Bahujan (Dalit-OBC) politics, the upper caste leaders of the party are restless. Leaders like SP MLA Manoj Pandey, Pawan Pandey to Rakesh Pratap Singh, Richa Singh and Juhi Singh had openly opened their front regarding Swami Prasad Maurya’s statement, but Akhilesh’s move on Shudra politics has left them worried. . SP’s upper caste leaders are not able to answer among their community and the way Swami Prasad Maurya is openly targeting Brahmins, their restlessness is increasing even more.
In the 2022 assembly elections, five Brahmins and four MLAs from Thakur community have been elected on SP ticket. These upper caste MLAs of SP have got Yadav-Muslim votes as well as votes of the upper caste community, due to which they are unable to answer due to the new politics of SP in their respective areas. That’s why only upper caste leaders are raising questions about Swami Prasad’s statement, but the way Akhilesh Yadav is now moving towards Bahujan politics. Because of that the worry of these leaders is increasing?
Thakur-Muslim-Yadav in Mulayam’s politics
Let us tell you that Mulayam Singh Yadav may have been doing politics of OBCs in his early days, but after the formation of Samajwadi Party, he took everyone along with the society. At one time there used to be Yadav-Muslim-Thakur community in the core vote bank of SP. From Mulayam Singh’s government to Akhilesh Yadav’s rule, Yadav-Muslim along with Thakur community leaders used to dominate. Not only this, Brahmin faces like Janeshwar Mishra and Brahm Shankar Tripathi also used to be in SP.
In the year 2012, Samajwadi Party came to power in UP with absolute majority. At that time, 48 Thakur MLAs had won in the state, out of which 38 won on SP ticket. This was the reason why 11 Thakurs were made ministers in the Akhilesh government. Not only this, Mata Prasad Pandey from the Brahmin community was made the Speaker of the Assembly and Brahmin leaders were made ministers. In this way Thakur-Brahmin used to be important in SP’s political agenda, but after BJP came to power in 2017, Brahmin and Thakur are disillusioned with SP.
BJP’s core vote bank Thakur-Brahmin
Thakur leaders from SP have joined BJP after Yogi Adityanath became the Chief Minister. Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, who supported SP, has now formed his own separate party and is supporting BJP. Rajkishore Singh, Madan Chauhan left SP and joined BSP, Raja Mahendra Aridman Singh, Raja Anand Singh joined BJP. In this way BJP became the political base of other Thakur leaders of SP.
In the 2022 assembly elections, Akhilesh Yadav has changed the strategy of SP and has started giving special political importance to Brahmin leaders instead of Thakurs. A large number of Brahmin leaders were also made candidates in the elections, out of which only five could win. According to the CSDS data, the Thakur-Brahmin-Vaishya community has voted between 80 to 90 percent for the BJP in the 2022 elections. SP has got about 32 percent votes in the 2022 elections while BJP has got 40 percent votes.
Why the politics of Bahujan
If political analysts are to be believed, Akhilesh Yadav has fully understood the political pulse of the state that the Thakur community will not leave Yogi Adityanath and join him at any cost. The Brahmin and Vaish community is also strongly associated with the BJP. In such a situation, the strategy is to focus on majority votes instead of upper caste votes. There is a difference of eight per cent votes between BJP and SP in the 2022 elections. In such a situation, Akhilesh Yadav wants to get five to six percent votes from BJP’s vote bank, in which he is eyeing the most backward votes. Keeping the Yadav-Muslim tie, Akhilesh is trying to garner Dalit-OBC votes. In such a situation, the question arises that can the Samajwadi Party succeed in adding Dalit-OBC votes by ignoring the upper castes?