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Akhilesh Yadav says poll results prove only Samajwadi Party can defeat BJP in Uttar Pradesh
Naresh Uttam Patel re-elected as Samajwadi Party state president during the party’s state convention at the Ramabai Ambedkar ground in Lucknow
Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said though election results were not favourable, they proved that only the SP can defeat the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. His remark was an attempt to boost the cadre morale at the ninth state convention of the party at the Rambai Ambedkar Maidan in Lucknow. This was the biggest party event since the 2022 UP assembly polls defeat.
Akhilesh Yadav also said the Samajwadi Party worked for a big victory but “the people in power used every trick and misused official machinery and we failed to succeed”.
In a precursor to Akhilesh Yadav’s re-election to the post of SP national president on Thursday, the party unanimously re-elected Naresh Uttam Patel as the Uttar Pradesh state president on Wednesday.
“In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Samajwadis tried hard and took a historic decision to realise the dream of Ram Manohar Lohia and B R Ambedkar to “bring the ‘Bahujan’ forces on one platform and also sacrificed for it, but the people in power misused everything and we did not succeed,” said Akhilesh Yadav, inaugurating the convention.
Both SP founder and chief patron Mulayam Singh Yadav and senior leader and Muslim face of the party Mohammad Azam Khan did not turn up at the event. Both are in Delhi because of health reasons, said the party.
“Though election results of alliance between the Samajwadis and Bahujanvadis have not been favourable, it has been proved that only our party can defeat the BJP in Uttar Pradesh,” Akhilesh Yadav said.
“In the 2022 polls, the Samajwadi Party formed an alliance to take along all those struggling to remove the BJP from power. Yet I can say one thing despite the (failure of) experiments of 2019 and 2022, only SP can challenge the BJP because of cadre’s hard work,” Yadav said, triggering a loud cheer from the crowd of SP workers.
The Samajwadi Party contested the 2019 Lok Sabha election in alliance with the BSP, and won a total of 15 seats (five to SP and ten to BSP). Soon after, both parties went their separate ways. In the 2022 assembly polls, it forged an alliance with smaller parties but failed to stop the BJP’s victory.
Political circles are now abuzz with chances of unity among the opposition parties at the national level for the 2024 general elections.
The party’s election officer and chief national general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav’s said after Patel’s unanimous re-election as the state president, the national president will soon announce the state executive.
Patel had become the party’s state president for the first time on January 1, 2017, replacing the then state president and Akhilesh’s uncle Shivpal Yadav. He was re-elected to the post in October 2017. This move of the party is being seen as a strategy to connect the backward class voters with the party as Patel belongs to other backward classes (OBC) Kurmi leader.
Akhilesh Yadav said, “All of us will work together towards taking the socialist movement ahead and remove the powers who are hell-bent upon dividing the society.” Akhilesh also remarked that the BJP government deliberately “wants to leave our Bahujan Samaj behind by fiddling with the rights (of reservation) which have been given to us in the Constitution.”
