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Amid challenges, Akhilesh set to be re-elected SP chief for 3rd term
Akhilesh was elected the party’s national president at the emergency national convention in Lucknow for the first time on January 1, 2017, replacing the party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav amid a family feud between the then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Yadav over control of the party. After this, the SP re-elected Akhilesh as the national president at its scheduled national convention in Agra on October 5, 2017.
Lucknow: In a crucial event in UP politics, Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav is all set to be re-elected as national president of the party for the third time in a row at its national convention in Lucknow on Thursday and sound the party’s poll bugle for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Before that, on Wednesday, the party will elect its state president at the state convention here.
The party has decked up the Ramabai Ambedkar Maidan, the venue for the twin conventions.
Besides the election of the national and state party presidents, the SP is all set to reconstitute “a strong state and national outfit” aimed at the 2024 polls and discuss the strategy for the upcoming local body elections this year.
The party will also pass political and economic resolutions, apparently against the BJP government at the centre and in the state.
Thursday’s event will also deliberate on positioning the SP strongly against the ruling BJP, which has been gaining strength from one election to the other since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
The SP national convention is being held after the party’s successive electoral failures in the 2014 LS, 2017 assembly, 2019 LS and 2022 assembly polls.
Taking lessons, the party leadership is working towards re-energising the organisation for the upcoming urban body elections in November-December and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Interestingly, the SP chief effectively managed to rev up the party’s dipping morale with his ‘street to assembly’ protests during the UP legislature’s monsoon session.
About 25,000 representatives of the party, including the top national and state leaders, would participate in these conventions, said SP chief spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary.
Akhilesh was elected the party’s national president at the emergency national convention in Lucknow for the first time on January 1, 2017, replacing the party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav amid a family feud between the then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Yadav over control of the party. After this, the SP re-elected Akhilesh as the national president at its scheduled national convention in Agra on October 5, 2017.
It was during this convention that the party changed its constitution and increased the term of the president from three years to five years.
The post of national president of the SP, formed in October 1992, has always been held by the Yadav family-- Mulayam Singh Yadav from 1992 to 2017 and Akhilesh Yadav since then.
Meanwhile, the SP’s Uttar Pradesh president Naresh Uttam Patel is likely to be retained in his post to consolidate the electorally dominant OBC votes.
“The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has created a political and economic crisis in the country and is playing with the democratic system. Being the main opposition party, the SP will discuss its effective role in dealing with these issues. In these conventions, there will be an in-depth discussion on the strategy of the party in the coming Lok Sabha elections,” Chaudhary said.
Issues such as the “weakening of” democratic institutions by the BJP, continuing downslide in the economy, law and order situation and the “endangering of social harmony” would also be specially discussed, he said.
Deteriorating law and order, plight of education and health sectors, increasing corruption and government cheating the farmers and the youth would be highlighted through politico-economic proposals, Chaudhary said.
The party has named the party’s chief national general secretary Ramgopal Yadav as the observer for the election of the national and state presidents.
UNCERTAINTY OVER MSY, AZAM
Meanwhile, the party’s national spokesperson Ashutosh Patel said SP founder Mulayam Singh had also been invited but was unlikely to attend due to his ill-health. Similar is the case with the founder member and senior party leader Azam Khan. Both Mulayam and Azam have been in Delhi for weeks over health issues. “Let’s see if they show up ,” he said.
TASK FOR AKHILESH & CHALLENGES
The task is cut out for Akhilesh Yadav to put a strong challenge to the BJP in the 2024 general election in Uttar Pradesh, which sends the maximum 80 MPs. With the BSP and the Congress decimated in the recent assembly polls in the politically significant state, the next general election is expected to be another round of the fight between the BJP and the SP.
The party is also all set to give full authority to Akhilesh Yadav to decide about the alliances at the national and state level for the 2024 LS polls amid the emergence of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar as the new hope of the opposition camp to stop Narendra Modi from becoming the prime minister for the third consecutive time.
Early this month, Nitish had met Akhilesh and Mulayam Singh Yadav in Delhi to forge a broader unity against the saffron party in the state.
