Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday dissolved the national and state executives of the party, barring the positions of national and state presidents. All national and state units, including the youth and women wings of the party, have been dissolved.
The action comes a week after the party’s loss in Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha bypolls, where the SP lost both the Rampur and Azamgarh seats. The party’s communique on Twitter did not cite any reason behind the decision.
The SP denied any link between the bypoll losses and Yadav’s Sunday action. “You don’t dissolve the entire party’s organisational structure for bypoll losses on one or two seats. This action was pending since the end of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls,” a party spokesperson said, seeking anonymity.
“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, Vidhan Sabha (state legislative council), and parliamentary bypolls to be over,” he said. “The party will take some time before reconstituting all the units afresh, as the reconstitution will be aimed at the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.”
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Dinesh Lal Yadav defeated SP candidate Dharmendra Yadav, a cousin of Akhilesh Yadav, by 8,679 votes in Azamgarh. The BJP candidate secured 312,768 votes while the SP candidate got 304,089 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.
{{/usCountry}}The Bharatiya Janata Party’s Dinesh Lal Yadav defeated SP candidate Dharmendra Yadav, a cousin of Akhilesh Yadav, by 8,679 votes in Azamgarh. The BJP candidate secured 312,768 votes while the SP candidate got 304,089 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.
{{/usCountry}}Rampur, the bastion of SP heavyweight Azam Khan, was also wrested by the BJP. The saffron party’s candidate Ghanshyam Lodhi defeated SP’s candidate Asim Raja by a comfortable margin of 42,192 votes.
In the 2022 assembly polls, the SP lost to the BJP but improved its tally and vote share in comparison to its performance in the 2017 state elections. The SP won 47 seats in 2017, but in 2022, it won 111 seats.