The controversy that Samajwadi Party (SP) MP Ramji Lal Suman has triggered with his comments on Rajput ruler Rana Sanga — Suman labelled him a traitor — has created a political dilemma for the Opposition party, forcing it into a delicate balancing act. On the one side is Suman who is a key Dalit leader integral to the party’s attempts to be more than just a Muslim-Yadav party, and on the other are Rajputs who form a crucial vote bank in western UP and whose anger against the BJP had cost the party in several seats in the Lok Sabha elections last year. The SP does not want the Rajput votes to turn against it even though the Assembly elections are a good two years away. On Wednesday, hours after Karni Sena workers stormed into Suman’s home in Agra in protest against his comments, SP president Akhilesh Yadav jumped to Suman’s defence for the second time in a week, saying the MP was attacked because he is Dalit. Yadav balanced this by saying the SP has not questioned the “bravery and patriotism of Rana Sanga”. On Sunday, defending Suman, one of his trusted party colleagues, Yadav said, “Everyone is flipping through the pages of history. Ask BJP leaders which pages they are turning. What are they debating? They want to talk about Aurangzeb. If Ramji Lal Suman ji has referred to a page in history containing certain facts, what’s the issue? We didn’t write history 200 years ago.” Yadav struck a more conciliatory tone on Wednesday even as he defended his party colleague. “Ramji Lal Suman has been attacked because he is a Dalit … Samajwadi Party is not questioning the bravery and patriotism of Mewar king Rana Sanga … Our aim is not to insult the Rajput community or any other community. Events from history cannot be interpreted with a present-day lens,” said the SP chief even as he accused the BJP of using certain historical events for political gains and dividing India along religion and caste lines.” The SP chief also took aim at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath who was in Agra on Wednesday to attend events marking the BJP’s eight years in power. “An experienced and senior Dalit parliamentarian’s home was attacked. The CM was nearby at the time. It means all this happened with the CM’s consent. How is it possible that the attack happened without the CM knowing?” The Agra Police on Thursday registered an FIR against an “uncontrolled crowd of hundreds, name unknown” on charges of rioting, attempt to murder, house trespass, and robbery. SP leader Ramgopal Yadav visited Suman at his house, alleging that though the attack was pre-planned and authorities were aware of it, they failed to take any preemptive action. Like Akhilesh Yadav, he too questioned administrative failure. “The chief minister was present at an event nearby, but the administration failed to act in the matter. The attackers came with bulldozers, sticks, batons, and swords, yet they were not stopped. What conclusion should we draw from this? The attackers had the full support of the government," said Ramgopal Yadav, adding that after Eid next week, the SP would launch a protest against the attack that he labelled as a “direct assault” on the “Pichchde, Dalit, and Alpsankhyak (OBCs, Dalits, and minorities)”. The focus on these communities, referred to as PDA in short, was a strategy that Akhilesh Yadav formulated for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to expand the party’s base. It fuelled the SP’s surge in the Lok Sabha polls that saw it upstage the BJP and win 37 of UP’s 80 parliamentary seats. The BJP dropped from 62 to 33 seats, in part because of Rajput (Thakur) anger in West UP over ticket distribution. The community makes up about 6% of the state’s population. During its Lok Sabha poll review last year, some BJP insiders had blamed former Sardhana MLA Sangeet Singh Som for provoking Thakurs, thereby hurting the party’s candidate and former MP Sanjeev Kumar Balyan in Muzaffarnagar. “Due to that anti-BJP sentiment created among Thakurs, the BJP not only lost Muzaffarnagar but also Saharanpur and Kairana and its margins declined in Meerut and Mathura. The Thakur issue damaged the BJP in all seven phases,” a leader had said at the time. The SP is cognisant of the influence Rajputs wield in UP politics and what their swing back towards the BJP will likely mean for the Assembly elections in 2027. According to party insiders, this explains Akhilesh Yadav’s conciliatory comments about the community.
