Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav
The UP Assembly session is starting from 29th July. Before that, Akhilesh Yadav has called a meeting of Samajwadi Party MLAs on 28th. The meeting will start at 10 am in the party office. The name of the new leader of the Samajwadi Party Legislative Dal may be announced in this meeting. The Leader of the Legislature will be the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly. Till now this responsibility was with Akhilesh Yadav. But now he has become Lok Sabha MP from Kannauj.
There is talk of having three leaders as leaders of the MLA party. Shivpal Yadav, Indrajit Saroj and Ramchal Rajbhar. Akhilesh Yadav is not in favor of giving this responsibility to his uncle Shivpal Yadav. Akhilesh himself is the Leader of the Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha and uncle Ram Gopal Yadav is the Leader of the Parliamentary Party in the Rajya Sabha.
In this way all the members of the family are responsible. Akhilesh Yadav’s PDA formula took a hit in the Lok Sabha elections. They can make Indrajit Saroj or Ram Achal Rajbhar the leader of the Samajwadi Party Legislature in the Assembly to take this agenda forward. Saroj is from a Dalit community and Rajbhar is from an extremely backward community.
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Will Shivpal Singh Yadav get responsibility?
While a section of the party is in favor of handing over the responsibility to former minister Shivpal Singh Yadav, those close to Akhilesh, one of the founding members of the party and younger brother of founder Mulayam Singh Yadav, are in favor of handing over the command. 105 SP MLAs are not sure about it. The party is considering appointing a Dalit face or a non-Yadav OBC leader in view of the recent Lok Sabha election results.
A party leader says that this decision will be taken by the party leadership, but Shivpal Singh Yadav knows the party leaders well. You can better connect MLAs with you. However, looking at the recent Lok Sabha elections, it seems that the party may give the responsibility to a senior Scheduled Caste leader like Indrajit Saroj to reassure the community like Pasi (Lok Sabha MP) Awadhesh Prasad that after coming to power, the party will give him a proper leadership role. Or a non-Yadav OBC leader will give to a leader like Ram Achal Rajbhar.
A leader connected with PDA can get responsibility
However, both Saroj and Rajbhar were earlier associated with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). This is his fault, but the idea behind putting his name forward is to use the position of Leader of the Opposition to push the party’s PDA slogan – Picche (backward classes), Dalit and Minority (minority) – which has gained momentum in Parliament. The election helped the Samajwadi Party move beyond its traditional Muslim-Yadav voter base.
61-year-old Saroj, once a BSP supremo and confidant of former CM Mayawati, joined the Samajwadi Party in 2017. Currently, he is not only the MLA from Manzanpur, but also the National General Secretary of the party. Its Pasi community, a large section of which had voted for the ruling BJP in previous elections, shifted to the Samajwadi Party in the Lok Sabha elections, but some attribute this to the Congress alliance. Some see the appointment of the Leader of the Opposition as an opportunity for the Samajwadi Party to reinforce the changed caste equation and give SC leaders an important role in the party.
Efforts to help Dalit-OBC tribes
Pasis constitute 16% of the Dalit population in UP – the second largest Dalit group in the state after the Jats and one of the most electorally influential communities in the state. They play a particularly important role in the Oudh region of the state. With assembly by-elections underway for Milkipur, the party is hoping to consolidate its advantage by fielding another Pasi leader. The Milkipur assembly seat in Ayodhya district fell vacant after SP’s most prominent pasi face Avdhesh Prasad was elected to the Lok Sabha from Faizabad.
Another leader considered for the role, Ram Achal Rajbhar, was once considered close to Mayawati. The 69-year-old Rajbhar joined the Samajwadi Party ahead of the 2022 assembly elections and is currently the MLA from Akbarpur. The non-Yadav OBC community Rajbhar has a significant presence in parts of eastern UP. NDA ally Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief Om Prakash is among the veteran Rajbhar leaders of the state.
