Lucknow:Upbeat after its success in the recently concluded elections to three tier panchyat bodies, the opposition Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh faces the biggest challenge of countering the Hindutva agenda of the ruling BJP in 2022 state assembly elections early next year.
The SP feels inspired by the success of the Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee who countered the BJP in West Bengal assembly elections by reciting `Chandi path’ and playing up her Brahmin origins.
'Hindutva is our biggest challenge after the BJP labeled us a pro-Muslim party. We have learnt lessons from Mamata Banerjee who overcame the BJP’s challenge by adopting soft Hindutva. We need to adopt similar strategies to ward off the BJP’s challenge’’, said a Samajwadi party leader here on Wednesday.
"Dobara Akhilesh’ is the catch phrase, the Samajwadi party intends to use in its campaign for 2022 UP Assembly elections. Few months ago, there were no takers for this slogan.
However, the Samajwadi party is confident that this slogan is all set to fire the imagination of the electorate as it has emerged as the main challenger to the ruling BJP. The party claims that the political situation has radically changed in UP after the panchayat elections and the miseries caused by the pandemic.
The SP sources said they are closely watching the moves of the Asaduddin Owasi’s AIMIM which has entered into an electoral alliance with the Suheldeo Bhartiya Samaj party, (SBSP), the former ally of the BJP. The SP during the election campaign has decided to focus on `development’ and the hospitals and health infrastructure will be the symbol as it is likely to resonate with the people battered by the pandemic.
'The present BJP government during the last four years has not built a single hospital or primary health centre and procured additional ambulances and recruited doctors and paramedics. The present health infrastructure in the state was developed during the previous regime of Samajwadi party headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav’’, said Sunil Yadav Sajan, SP MLC.
Ahead of the Assembly elections, SP plans to organise training camps at the district level for its cadres. 'The panchayat election has thrown a new generation of committed party cadres across the state at grassroots level and we intends to pick the future leaders from among them’’, said a SP leader, adding that 'this is the only political nursery left in the state as the students union elections have been abolished from where new leaders emerged'.
The SP before the panchayat election had organised informal interactions called `Ghera’ with the farmers, youth and women and some of these programmes were addressed by the party president Akhilesh Yadav. The ongoing farmer’s agitation against the three agriculture related legislation has also helped the SP to make inroads among the farmers particularly in Western UP.
For consolidating its base in Western UP, the SP has already forged alliance with the Rashtriya Lok Dal, which joined the BKU-led farmers protest on UP-Delhi border. The RLD fared well in panchayat elections in districts falling under Meerut and Saharanpur divisions.(UNI)
