With the caste and religion being the bedrock of politics in Uttar Pradesh, all the parties in this largest Hindi heartland state make it a point to keep caste dynamics in mind while formulating electoral strategy. The Samajwadi Party (SP) is seen to be doing exactly the same these days. With the Assembly elections in UP less than two years away, Akhilesh Yadav-led party has begun to assess the caste arithmetic. The party, whose mentor Mulayam Singh Yadav once emerged as a powerful OBC leader, is now planning to woo Brahmin voters in its endeavour to wrest the power back from the BJP.
As part of this strategy, the SP has decided to install a large idol of Bhagwan Parashuram — a seer venerable among Brahmins—in Lucknow. The party on Thursday announced that apart from installing the biggest statue of Parashuram, several idols will simultaneously be installed at every district of the state. Former cabinet minister Abhishek Mishra and ex-MLA Santosh Pandey have been sent to Jaipur for finalising the idols. This suggests how fast the SP is moving with its political agenda to win the hearts of Brahmins, which constitute 10 per cent of the electorate in Uttar Pradesh.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav is going by the party’s similar experiment of wooing Brahmins in the 2012 assembly elections, The SP had succeeded then and Akhilesh had rode to power. Ahead of the 2017 elections when Akhilesh expanded the cabinet he had inducted two Brahmins. But the SP performed miserably due mainly to the Modi wave in 2017, and also anti-incumbency issues.
In addition to its own successful experiment of wooing Brahmins, the SP has delved into electoral history of the state and saw how the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had played the similar card in 2007 and got support of Brahmin to become chief minister of the state. In 2007, the BSP had formed the government on its own in Uttar Pradesh. It is believed that it was the party’s successful attempt in making the Scheduled Castes coalesce with the upper castes that had propelled it to victory. The slogan of Sarvajan Sukahaya given by the BSP supremo had cut much ice with the upper caste including Brahmins.
Now, coming to the present, the SP is preparing ground to gain the upper caste, particularly Brahmin votes. Recent developments in the state have prompted the SP strategists to think on this line. It is apparent that the Brahmin community is not happy with the Yogi Adityanath government due to what is being dubbed as its policy giving priority to Thakurs. The alleged encounter of a minor in the Vikas Dubey case is also a factor. It is said that five Brahmins having been killed for alleged links with Dubey hasn’t gone down well with this upper caste community. Some said that all the five were killed despite having no criminal records.
With this in view, the Samajwadi Party is now keen to cash in on simmering anger among the Brahmins against the current dispensation which they label as proThakurs and anti-Brahmin. So, it is ‘strike when iron is hot’ kind of situation and the SP does want to let this opportunity go. What has boosted morale of the SP leaders is that the BSP looks to be getting closer to the BJP, given whatever statements BSP supremo Mayawati has been given over the past few days, sounding sweet to the ears of the BJP leadership. As far as the Congress is concerned, its leaders in UP are crestfallen for quite some time. AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was trying to galvanise the party to some extent but her inability to convince the masses so far of what the party is up to is leading the Congress nowhere.
The Daily Guardian spoke to an influential Congress leader from the Brahmin community, Jitin Prasad, on all this. He said, “I am happy to see the focus is back on Brahmins in the state politics. Every party is welcomed to do any kind of welfare of the community. But my point is that these efforts should not be limited to the elections only because we have seen how various parties in the past used the community for elections and forgot them.”
The Congress leader has actually criticised all the three parties—the BJP, the SP and the BSP. He wanted to send out a message that the SP and the BSP both used Brahmin votes to gain power but they ignored the community later on. That Brahmins are unhappy with the BJP government in UP lends credence to what Prasad said. Needless to say, the Congress is pinning hope on Jitin Prasad for broadening the support base among Brahmins.
Jitin Prasad recently attacked the Yogi government for alleged atrocities on Brahmins. He had also announced to start Brahmin Chetna Samvad to connect with Brahmins.
However, the recent euphoria among the upper castes arising out of Bhoomi Pujan setting the stage for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya could be giving anxious moments to the SP as well as the Congress which have set eyes on Brahmins. They know that the BJP will spare no effort to keep its Brahmin vote-bank intact and the Ram temple will help the saffron outfit to keep the upper castes in good book.
