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Akhilesh’s big rejig in Samajwadi Party week after Lok Sabha bypolls
With an eye on 2024 LS polls, the SP chief dissolved the national and state executives along with youth and women’s wings
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday dissolved the national and state executives of the party barring the national and state president. All the national and state unit cells, including the youth and women wings of the party, have been dissolved. The action comes a week after the party’s loss in UP Lok Sabha bypolls, wherein SP lost both the Rampur and Azamgarh seats.
Although the party’s official communique on Twitter did not cite any reason behind the decision, it can be seen as an attempt to revamp the party after the recent defeat in bypolls.
The party, however, denied any link between the bypolls losses and Akhilesh’s Sunday action. A senior party spokesperson, choosing to go unnamed, said: “Let me explain. You don’t dissolve the entire party’s organisational structure for bypolls losses on one or two seats. This action was pending since the end of the 2022 UP assembly polls. The party often dissolves its organisational structure after a general election -- irrespective of win or loss; and then reconstructs it for the next polls. The party, this time, waited for the Rajya Sabha (upper house of the Parliament), Vidhan Sabha (UP legislative council), and Parliamentary bypolls to be over. The party will take some time before reconstituting all the units afresh as the reconstitution will be aimed at the 2024 Lok Sabha polls”.
BJP’s Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’ defeated the former UP chief minister’s cousin and SP candidate Dharmendra Yadav by 8,679 votes in Azamgarh. The BJP candidate secured 3,12,768 votes while the SP candidate got 3,04,089 votes. The Lok Sabha seat was earlier represented by Akhilesh Yadav, who had resigned after being elected to the Karhal assembly seat in the 2022 assembly polls. Rampur, the bastion of SP heavyweight Azam Khan, was also wrested by the BJP. The saffron party candidate Ghanshyam Lodhi defeated SP’s candidate Asim Raja by a comfortable margin of 42,192 votes in the direct contest.
As far as the UP Assembly bypolls 2022 is concerned, the SP lost the polls to the BJP but improved its tally and vote share in comparison to its performance in the 2017 polls. The SP could win only 47 seats in the 2017 UP Assembly polls, but in 2022, it won 111 seats.
