Akhilesh Yadav.Image Credit Source: Facebook
For the first time, Akhilesh Yadav stayed at his home on the day of the result. He did not visit the Samajwadi Party office even once, but was in constant touch with party leaders and workers. He continued to give instructions from his home. This streak continued till late night. Samajwadi Party lost in Farrukhabad by almost two thousand votes. Party workers felt that something had gone wrong. Akhilesh calmed everyone down. The nearly 32-year-old Samajwadi Party has had its best performance in the Lok Sabha elections.
Under the leadership of Akhilesh Yadav, the party won 38 seats. Samajwadi Party got 35 seats in 2004 elections. Mulayam Singh Yadav was the leader of the party then. Akhilesh Yadav’s leadership was being questioned after losing four consecutive elections, but this time Akhilesh Yadav is the man of the match in the Lok Sabha elections. He single-handedly prevented the BJP from reaching the majority mark.
Akhilesh Yadav’s formula for this election was PDA. He announced this about seven months ago. Backward people, Dalits and minorities were planned to contest elections. Akhilesh felt that in the name of minority, BJP could do communal polarization in the guise of Muslims.
Then he sometimes referred to the PDA as forward and sometimes as half the population i.e. women. Akhilesh Yadav distributed tickets on this formula. This time the age old social equation of ‘MY’ was discarded. Muslims and Yadavs will stay with Samajwadi Party in any situation. Based on this idea, Akhilesh Yadav changed his strategy in this election.
The non-Yadav focus remained on backward classes and Dalits
Akhilesh Yadav’s entire focus is now on non-Yadav backward classes and Dalits. He made this attempt in the last assembly elections as well. But this time while doing social engineering Akhilesh applied the cluster formula. This means that a separate social equation was created for each region. A Patel candidate was given on one Lok Sabha seat, while candidates from Nishad, Bind and Kushwaha were given on the basis of population in nearby seats. This double dose of social engineering was a superhit. He fielded Nishad candidate from Gorakhpur against Maneka Gandhi. Ram Bhual Nishad defeated Maneka Gandhi in Sultanpur. Akhilesh did many such experiments.
Selection of candidates ensured victory
Faizabad Lok Sabha seat is not safe. But here he passed the ticket to Dalit leader Awadhesh. Ayodhya is also in Faizabad Lok Sabha seat. The BJP made the consecration of the Ram temple a major election issue. But different slogans were raised in Faizabad. Neither Ayodhya nor Kashi, this time Awadhesh Pasi. Samajwadi Party candidate Awadhesh Prasad belongs to Pasi community. Kurmi was the candidate in Ambedkar Nagar seat adjacent to Faizabad and Nishad was the candidate in Sultanpur. People from Backward, Very Backward and Dalit communities along with Muslims and Yadav communities ensured the victory of Awadhesh Prasad from Faizabad.
Formed an alliance with four parties
BJP has formed an alliance with four parties in UP to expand the social equation. RLD for Jat votes, Nishad Party for Nishad votes, Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party for Rajbhar votes and Apna Dal for Patel Kurmi votes. Akhilesh Yadav made a similar formula in the last assembly elections too. But this time his strategy changed. He had prepared to try himself in the place of an outsider. Pallavi Patel had left him. In such a situation this time Akhilesh Yadav openly gave tickets to non-Yadav backward communities. Patel gave tickets to 10 Kushwaha-Shakya-Saini Samaj leaders of the Kurmi Samaj. Similarly, 5 candidates from Nishad caste were given. Among Dalits, he gave tickets to 7 leaders of Pasi Samaj and 6 leaders of Jatav Samaj. Mayawati belongs to the Jatav community. 11 percent Jatavs of UP have been voting for Mayawati for a long time now. But this time Akhilesh Yadav bet on him and he was successful.
The issue of changing the constitution fell heavily on the BJP
BJP tried hard to lure Akhilesh Yadav into its own game. Why don’t you go to the Ram Mandir Abhishek ceremony? There was a lot of controversy about this. But this step of BJP did not work in the election. Akhilesh Yadav stood firm on his pitch. He kept raising issues like unemployment, inflation, paper leak. Keep on promising free data with Anta. Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi turned BJP’s ‘Char So Par’ slogan into a fight to save the Constitution. Word spread in every village that the constitution would be changed if the BJP government was formed. Reservations for Dalits and Backward Classes may end. From Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Sangh President Mohan Bhagwat, clarifications were given several times. But this thing stuck in people’s minds. This is the reason why Mayawati’s voters also supported Akhilesh Yadav. This is a major turning point in UP politics. After the Akash Anand episode, BSP’s image became like BJP’s ‘B’ team. In such a situation, the alliance with the Congress was the icing on the cake.
