NEW DELHI: With Samajwadi Party leadership echoing its PDA (Pichda, Dalit, Adivasi) narrative. The party, according to leaders, is hoping to break away a chunk of backward classes from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s voter base in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, with Dalits being an important target electorate.
Samajwadi Party spokesperson Kirti Nidhi Pandey told The Sunday Guardian, “This is the first time that we have our focus on PDA (Pichda Dalit Adivasi) and based on that we have fielded PDA candidates on maximum seats. Moreover, in all of Purvanchal, we have created a political web against the BJP’s communal strategy, and we are fully hopeful that we will be successful in our pursuit. Also, this is the first time that we have fielded Scheduled Caste candidates on general category seats as well. There are 3 such general category seats where we have fielded Scheduled Caste candidates.”
A political observer tracking national politics said, “These are different political times and seeing the elections, it seems that caste trends have, by and large, been declining. And why is it happening? Because there is a strong leader at the Centre. And therefore, there are two types of voters, one who is pro Modi and another who is against Modi. If that is anything to go by, then people who have been voting for Modi and are unable to find a strong opposition leader would be inclined to vote Modi.”
The SP sees Purvanchal important for the growth in its tally of seats. SP won more than 50 Assembly seats in Purvanchal in 2022. That was because of the support from Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) led by Om Prakash Rajbhar and other smaller parties. A political analyst said, “The SBSP has more than 20,000 votes in about 40 assembly constituencies out of the 111 constituencies in Purvanchal, which subsequently helped SP.
Now the same party is with the BJP and moreover Yadav voters do not only vote for the SP in Lok Sabha, there are above 20 percent Yadav votes that go to BJP. Lok Sabha is a different ball game in UP. Therefore mathematically the BJP is not on the backfoot.”
Other analysts believe that the trust factor with Rajbhar has gone down as people are of the opinion that this should not be the ideal politics as whenever they wish they switch to one party and when they find more benefits with anther party they jump the ship, which has reduced his impact substantially. Therefore, according to analysts, there are around 29 seats in UP where the contest will be tough and if the opposition fights well, the majority of these seats can fall in their lap.
With 28 Lok Sabha seats, the region (Purvanchal) also presents a complicated caste matrix with non-Yadav OBCs dominating its pockets. The SP, in 2022 assembly elections, had banked on smaller caste based outfits to climax the win in their favour. SP had stitched alliances with parties representing the Most Backward Classes (MBCs).
However, the BJP came back to power with clear majority. This time, the four out of the five parties, which were in alliance with them have left SP’s fold. It has made the state-party fall back on Congress. Making it mostly rely on its core Yadav-Muslim base to turn the tide in its favour in UP. Although the leaders claim the party has been able to interest non-Yadav OBC voters as well, some analysts claim that even those OBCs, who were with them during Mulayam Singh Yadav seemed to be slipping away.