Akhilesh to revamp SP with focus on MBCs
Struggling to come to terms with the third successive poll debacle in the last five years and counter growing dissent among the cadre, Samajwadi Party has come up with the usual recipe of major revamp of the organisation with focus on roping in the most backward castes (MBCs).
The non-Yadav MBCs overwhelmingly voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the recent Lok Sabha elections.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has held a series of meetings over the past two days in the presence of party patron Mulayam Singh Yadav. Mulayam is said to have told Akhilesh to make the party more broad-based instead of focusing only on backward castes.
Samajwadi Lohia Vahini secretary Shravan Kumar Tyagi had posted an open letter to Akhilesh on the social media, asking him to get rid of sycophants and sideline those who misbehave with party workers.
“The party office is filled with leaders who can not even get 10 votes on their own,” the Lohia Vahini leader wrote.
Meanwhile, two of the newly-elected SP MPs have also blamed the alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Part for the party’s poor show. The MPs said that the alliance was formalised too late and the message did not reach the people.
“I think SP and BSP votes could not come together. People also got less time to decipher our message. Gathbandhan mein thodi der hui (the alliance got a bit delayed),” said SP MP-elect from Moradabad, ST Hasan.
Meanwhile, SP MP-elect from Sambhal, Shafiqur Rehman Barq, said that it would have been beneficial if the Congress was also part of the alliance.
“Gathbandhan aur mazboot ho jata, natije behtar aate (the alliance would have been strengthened and the result would have been better),” he commented, adding that SP and BSP workers worked at cross-purposes.
SP sources said that Akhilesh Yadav met a cross-section of leaders during the past two days, including those who had been sidelined in recent months. They include Ahmad Hasan, Om Prakash Singh, Arvind Singh Gope, Avadhesh Prasad, Manoj Paras etc.
Akhilesh Yadav also disbanded the frontal units of the SP like Lohia Vahini, Samajwadi Yuvjan Sabha, Mulayam Singh Youth Brigade and Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha. These outfits would be reconstituted with new leaders.
The SP chief had earlier dissolved his panel of 50 media panellists and the party was also preparing to name a new state party president, replacing Naresh Uttam.
Despite its alliance with the BSP, the SP fared poorly in the Lok Sabha elections and could bag only five seats. Three members of the Yadav family — Dimple Yadav, Dharmendra Yadav and Akshay Yadav — lost the elections.
Post the rout of the SP-BSP-RLD alliance in UP, a serious effort is on to analyse how the formidable caste arithmetic went awry.
BSP chief Mayawati and SP leader Akhilesh Yadav, who summoned their party leaders for a dressing down, are said to be open to wholesale organisational changes to address the shortcomings.
The SP-BSP-RLD alliance won only 15 of the 78 seats it contested with the BSP winning 10, SP being restricted to its 2014 tally of five and the RLD losing all three seats it contested.
