Keeping BJP in crosshairs in UP for 2024, SP, BSP, Congress slug it out to corner Dalit-Muslim base

To connect with Dalits, the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) has started making the pitch that the social justice agenda of socialist icon Ram Manohar Lohia and BSP founder Kanshi Ram was the same, thereby urging them to rally round the party.

समाजवादी पार्टी की ओर से आज राजधानी लखनऊ सहित प्रदेश के सभी जनपदों में समाजवादी नेता एवं विचारक डॉ0 राममनोहर लोहिया जी की 113वीं जयंती सादगी से मनाई गई। https://t.co/5CKEZfPSy6 pic.twitter.com/kcJ6VZfvsh

— Samajwadi Party (@samajwadiparty) March 23, 2023

On its part, the BSP has been cautioning the Muslim community as well as Dalits not to fall for the SP, with both the parties accusing each other of being the “B team” of the BJP in a bid to attract Muslim voters to their respective folds.

The Congress, which has been in political wilderness in the state for many years, has also started making efforts for its revival through an outreach to Muslims, cautioning them against both the SP and the BSP while alleging that both might work in the BJP’s favour during the Lok Sabha polls to suit their agendas for the next Assembly elections.

The SP recently celebrated the birth anniversary of Kanshi Ram, even as it established the “Samajwadi Baba Saheb Ambedkar Vahini” as a frontal organisation of the party. Akhilesh has also sought to showcase how his party gives respect to veteran Dalit leaders, keeping veteran Pasi leader and party MLA from Ayodhya, Awadhesh Prasad, close to him everywhere, including on the dais at the party’s recent national executive meeting in Kolkata.

Looking to ensure that these moves are not seen as just a “one-time exercise”, Akhilesh even unveiled a statue of Kanshi Ram in Rae Bareli recently. He is now preparing to celebrate the Ambedkar Jayanti on April 14 in a grand manner, even as he has charged that the BSP has failed to fulfil the dreams of Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram.

माननीय राष्ट्रीय अध्यक्ष श्री अखिलेश यादव जी ने रायबरेली में मान्यवर कांशीराम जी की प्रतिमा का अनावरण किया। pic.twitter.com/crcHhHQSCr

— Samajwadi Party (@samajwadiparty) April 3, 2023

Having had a failed alliance with the BSP during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the SP is now trying to send out a message that the party does not need Mayawati’s party to bring together Dalits and OBCs on a platform against the BJP. Akhilesh has been claiming as to how it is only his party that can fulfil the dreams of Ambedkar, Kanshi Ram and Lohia for social justice.

On the occasion of the unveiling of Kanshi Ram’s statue by Akhilesh at Rae Bareli, SP leader Swami Prasad Maurya invoked an old slogan to charge that the BJP’s politics over Ram will not work as “Mulayam and Kanshi Ram have joined hands”.

Upset by the remarks made by Maurya — a former BJP minister and BSP leader, who was recently embroiled in a row over his comments on Ramcharitmanas too — Mayawati cautioned “Dalits, Muslims and OBCs” against the SP’s designs.

Referring to the infamous guest house incident, Mayawati questioned the “intention” of SP founder and Akhilesh’s father Mulayam Singh Yadav in forging an alliance with the BSP in 1993. She charged,“Kanshi Ram ji formed the SP-BSP alliance with missionary spirit, but despite Mulayam Singh Yadav becoming the CM of the alliance, his intention was neither clean nor pious. He wanted to defame the BSP and continue the Dalit oppression.”

Distancing herself from the three-decade-old slogan that Maurya referred to, Mayawati said, “The slogans related to Ayodhya, Shri Ram Mandir and upper caste society etc, which were publicised during that time, were mischievous and well-planned conspiracy of SP to defame BSP. Therefore, there is a dire need for the Dalits, OBCs and the Muslim community to beware of such activities of the SP.”

On its part, while trying to reach out to Muslims, the Congress is also targeting both the SP and the BSP, urging the minority community to retract their support for the SP or the BSP.

Through a statewide campaign the Congress is seeking to communicate to the Muslim community that “it will not be SP or BSP but Congress which can act as an alternative to BJP at the national level” and that their backing for the SP or BSP has only resulted in “strengthening” of the ruling BJP.

The grand old party is using data of the past elections and pamphlets in support of its pitch for this campaign in minority-dominated belts, especially in western UP.