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Samajwadi PDA Yatra: Akhilesh to kick off his inaugural bicycle rally for 2024 LS polls
The yatra aims to highlight the SP’s 2024 election slogan, ‘PDA - Pichada, Dalit, Alpsankhyak-Muslims (backward, Dalits and minorities, especially Muslims),’ a bloc of voters that constitutes about 85% of the total voters in the state.
Lucknow: Sticking to one of his preferred campaign strategies, Akhilesh Yadav, the national president of Samajwadi Party (SP), is all set to ride a bicycle, symbolising the party’s election emblem, over a 20-km stretch in Lucknow on Monday.
Dubbed the ‘Samajwadi PDA Yatra,’ this bicycle rally signifies the launch of Akhilesh’s campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Akhilesh has been a well-known advocate of bicycle campaigns, a tradition he has maintained during every election season since his entry into politics in 1999-2000 when he first became an MP.
The yatra aims to highlight the SP’s 2024 election slogan, ‘PDA - Pichada, Dalit, Alpsankhyak-Muslims (backward, Dalits and minorities, especially Muslims),’ a bloc of voters that constitutes about 85% of the total voters in the state.
The SP’s ongoing ‘Desh Bachao, Desh Banao’ bicycle rally has been uninterrupted for 82 days since its launch from Prayagraj on August 9, passing through Kaushambi, Chitrakoot, Banda, Fatehpur, Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh, Amethi, Sultanpur, Ambedkarnagar, Faizabad, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur, Deoria, Kushinagar, Maharaganj, Sidharthnagar, Balrampur, Shravasti, Bahriach and Gonda. It has now reached Barabanki and is set to enter Lucknow on Monday morning, where Akhilesh will join. This leg of the ‘Desh Bachao, Desh Banao’ cycle rally will be referred to as the ‘Samajwadi PDA Yatra’ and will cover a 20 km route from the Lucknow end of the Purvanchal Expressway to Janeshwar Mishra Park.
Akhilesh, along with party workers and leaders, will ride bicycles from the Purvanchal Expressway and reach Janeshwar Mishra Park, passing through Kabirpur, the Indira canal bridge, Kisan Path, Amul Plant, the Cancer hospital, HCL gate, Ekana stadium, Police headquarters, Rapti apartments and DPS school.
“Most of these landmarks were established during the previous SP government led by Akhilesh Yadav,” noted party’s national secretary Rajendra Chaudhary.
The party unveiled the Samajwadi PDA Yatra route on Sunday morning. The yatra will strive to emphasise the SP’s PDA formula and its call for a caste census. This first phase of the ‘Desh Bachao, Desh Banao’ yatra will conclude on November 22, coinciding with the birth anniversary of the party’s founder, the late Mulayam Singh Yadav. The yatra’s final destination is Mulayam’s ‘samadhi’ in his ancestral village, Saifai, Etawah. Akhilesh Yadav will also be present in Saifai to welcome the yatra and lay the foundation for a grand memorial in honour of Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The SP is a member of the INDIA bloc, a nationwide alliance of opposition parties gearing up to challenge the ruling BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Akhilesh has repeatedly emphasised that ‘INDIA is the front, PDA is the formula’ to defeat the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.
