Akhilesh pushes pedal, gives momentum to ‘PDA’ formula

‘INDIA’ will win in the future...we have unity in diversity; be it ‘Agde’ or ‘Adivasi’, all are included in the PDA for which our party is batting, says SP chief

LUCKNOW Amid friction between the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Congress within the INDIA bloc, SP president Akhilesh Yadav gave momentum to his ‘Pichhde, Dalit, Alpsankhyak’ (PDA) formula for 2024 Lok Sabha polls by taking a 20-km bicycle ride from the Lucknow tip of the Purvanchal Expressway to the Janeshwar Mishra Park here on Monday.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, along with party workers, rides a bicycle during the party’s PDA yatra, in Lucknow on Monday. (ANI Photo)

“The SP and its allies will register a historic win in 2024,” he said while concluding the Samajwadi PDA Yatra - the Lucknow lap of the pan-UP ‘Desh Bachao, Desh Banao Yatra’.

Yadav said he is taking out the rally to raise awareness about the threat to social justice and rights and honour of the people, and to campaign for caste census. The campaign has already covered over 5,000km across UP.

Hundreds of SP workers and leaders joined him on bicycles wearing the signature red caps of the party.

Responding to media persons over speculations of differences within the INDIA bloc, he said: “Yesterday, India won (in cricket), and ‘INDIA’ will win in the future...we have unity in diversity. Be it ‘Agde’ or ‘Adivasi’, all are included in the PDA for which our party is batting.”

Bicycle is the poll symbol of the SP and also its preferred campaign style.

This was Akhilesh’s first cycle ride for the 2024 polls and also the first major campaign for it by a leader of any political party in Uttar Pradesh’s capital.

Amid the strain between his party and the Congress, Akhilesh had said: “The PDA was formulated first, INDIA bloc later. INDIA is an alliance, but our strategy is PDA.”

The PDA comprising backwards, Dalits and minorities (especially Muslims) is said to constitute 85% of the total voters in UP. “But the A also stands for ‘agda’ (upper castes) ‘aadhi abadi’ (women— half of the population), and ‘adivasi’ (tribals),” said Yadav at the press conference he held shortly before the cycle yatra.

He also said: “We are forward people…we made the stadium (where Indian cricket team won against England on Sunday). But those who did not do anything and went there just to get their photo clicked and those who changed the name of the stadium are backward in the real sense.”

Tension erupted between the SP and the Congress when Akhilesh Yadav got angry over the latter not sharing seats with the SP for the forthcoming Madhya Pradesh assembly polls. The war of words between the two parties lasted over a week till Yadav called a truce after receiving a message from Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s office last week (October 22).

Talks are on between the two parties even as the SP is now contesting the MP polls on its own — on 40 seats.

Akhilesh had been undertaking bicycle campaigns every poll season since he entered politics in 1999-2000 when he became an MP for the fist time. The culture of cycle rallies was initiated by party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav in 1992 when he founded the party and almost all big leaders of the party - be it Mulayam, Shivpal, Janeshwar Mishra, or Azam Khan - rode bicycles.

Samajwadi PDA yatra was the name given to the SP’s ongoing ‘Desh Bachao, Desh Banao’ cycle yatra that entered its 83rd day on Monday after it began on August 9 from Prayagraj. Traversing through Kaushambi, Chitrakoot, Banda, Fatehpur, Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh, Amethi, Sultanpur, Ambedkarnagar, Faizabad, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur, Deoria, Kushinagar, Maharaganj, Sidharthnagar, Balrampur, Shravasti, Bahraich, Gonda and Barabanki, the yatra entered Lucknow on Monday that Akhilesh joined and led.

He rode from Purvanchal Expressway and reached Janeshwar Mishra Park traversing through Kabirpur, Indira Canal bridge, Kisan Path, Amul Plant, Cancer hospital, HCL gate, Ekana stadium, Police headquarters, Rapti apartments, and DPS school.

This first phase of ‘Desh Bachao, Desh Banao Yatra’ will end on November 22 -- the birth anniversary of party founder late Mulayam Singh Yadav. The yatra will end at Mulayam’s ‘samadhi’ at his ancestral village - Saifai, Etawah. Akhilesh Yadav too will reach Saifai to welcome the yatra where he will lay the foundation for a grand memorial for Mulayam Singh Yadav.