Samajwadi Party President Akhilesh Yadav. File.
| Photo Credit: PTI
In an try at reaching out to the numerically vital Dalit neighborhood, Samajwadi Party (SP) nationwide president Akhilesh Yadav is probably going to unveil a statue of the late Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder and Dalit chief Kanshi Ram at a perform in Rae Bareli on April 3. Mr. Yadav can be going to tackle a public assembly the place he’s possible to give attention to the social gathering’s agenda of Other Backward Classes (OBC)-Dalit unity, which gained momentum after 2022 Vidhan Sabha polls.
It’s attention-grabbing to be aware that the primary organiser of the Rae Bareli perform is Swami Prasad Maurya, a key OBC chief of the SP, who had a protracted stint in the BSP. Kashi Ram’s statue will probably be unveiled at Manyawar Kanshi Ram Mahavidyalaya in Rae Bareli’s Mahamaya Nagar.
“Kanshi Ram’s ideas are now not followed by the BSP. It is the need of the hour for supporters of Kanshi Ram and Mulayam Singh Yadav to join hand like in 1993 and make history,” Mr. Maurya mentioned. The Rae Bareli go to by the SP chief additionally holds significance as he has been constantly attacking the Congress social gathering and has hinted at placing up a candidate from adjoining Amethi, historically a Congress bastion, in the 2024 polls. Rae Bareli can be a Congress pocket borough represented by Sonia Gandhi.
The unveiling of Kanshi Ram’s statue comes days after the SP chief attended a perform of the Khatik neighborhood, a sub-group inside the Scheduled Castes (SC) in Kanpur, which was additionally seen as an outreach to carry Dalit sub-groups below the social gathering’s fold. Following the gradual decline over the Dalit-centric BSP over the past six years, the SP has been constantly signalling to Dalit voters via its outreach initiatives. The BSP polled solely 12.8%, it’s lowest in nearly three many years, in the 2022 Assembly polls. The SP additionally organised an occasion to mark Kanshi Ram’s delivery anniversary on the State social gathering workplace attended by senior social gathering leaders, together with Mr. Maurya.
The Dalit outreach is seen as acceptance of altering electoral realities by the SP, which is conscious {that a} Yadav-Muslim consolidation and a piece of non-Yadav OBC help just isn’t going to assist it beat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. “The gap between the saffron party and the SP-led alliance is more than 10%. Akhilesh Yadav is aware that the SP needs support from social groups, apart from its traditional voters, hence this outreach towards Dalits is going on,” Satish Ok. Jha, a political scientist based mostly in New Delhi, mentioned.
