SP chooses Brahmin leader to replace Akhilesh as Uttar Pradesh LoP: Who is Mata Prasad Pandey?

A seven-term MLA from Itwa in eastern UP’s Sidharthanagar district, Pandey previously served as Assembly Speaker during the tenure of the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led government in 2004. He was again chosen as Speaker when Akhilesh led the SP to power in 2012.

Sources said a section of the party wanted Akhilesh’s uncle and SP founder-member Shivpal Singh Yadav to take over as LoP but, after long discussions, the leadership decided against it. With the party having contested the Lok Sabha polls on the plank of reservation and its PDA – Pichhde (the backward), Dalit, Alpsankhyak (minority) — slogan, its decision to appoint a Brahmin as LoP is aimed to create balance in its Assembly leadership team.

The SP also made two more significant appointments on Sunday. While Kanth MLA Kamal Akhtar — a former Rajya Sabha MP and Cabinet minister in the Akhilesh government — will be its chief whip in the Assembly, Raniganj MLA R K Verma who is a Kurmi leader from Pratapgarh will serve as the deputy whip. Verma had joined the SP ahead of the 2022 Assembly polls. In the 2017 polls, he was elected from the Pratapgarh Assembly seat as a candidate of the Apna Dal (Soneylal), a BJP ally.

SP insiders said a section was not in favour of giving responsibilities to “outsiders”, those who recently joined the SP from other parties. However, Pandey was a unanimous choice for LoP, with his appointment assuming significance following the exit of Manoj Kumar Pandey, the former chief whip and a Brahmin leader, who joined the BJP in February ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections that month.

The move to nominate a Brahmin face as LoP, particularly given the SP’s focus on reservation and PDA, came as a surprise to some within the party. However, a senior leader said a Brahmin leader would help the party consolidate the community’s votes, especially in the Purvanchal region, and provide it with a more well-rounded appeal given that it already has the support of its traditional Muslim-Yadav base and now also some non-Yadav OBC groups.

Pandey contested his first election from Itwa in 1980 as a Janta Party candidate. In 1985, he retained the seat, but as a Lok Dal candidate and in 1989 he won it on a Janata Dal ticket. He was elected on an SP ticket for the first time in 2002 and retained Itwa in 2007 and 2012. However, he lost in 2017 to the BJP’s S C Dwivedi, who went on to become a state minister. Pandey regained the seat in 2022, defeating Dwivedi by a narrow margin of 1,662 votes.

After attending the all-party meeting and business advisory committee at the Assembly on Sunday, Mata Prasad Pandey said, “This government has given only problems to people of the state, thus there is no dearth of issues to raise. There is the problem of law and order at the top, unemployment, problems of students, farmers etc. We will fight for all these issues and raise them in the Assembly.”

Referring to Pandey as a “prakash ka stambha (pillar of light)”, Akhilesh said the veteran leader “has the long experience of knowing, understanding and making others follow healthy traditions at the Vidhan Sabha”. The former CM added that Pandey’s experience would not only help SP MLAs but also the Speaker, the Chief Minister, and other ministers and MLAs.