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Dalits, backward classes to help topple BJP in 2024 polls: Akhilesh
The combine of pichchde, Dalit, alpasankhyak (backward classes, dalits, minorities).” The BJP leads the NDA, or National Democratic Alliance.
Proposing a formula to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav said the regime will be toppled by backward classes, Dalits and minorities.
“PDA will defeat NDA,” Yadav said at an event organised by news channel NDTV in Lucknow. “PDA stands for pichchde, Dalit, alpasankhyak (backward classes, Dalits, minorities).”
The BJP leads the NDA, or the National Democratic Alliance.
Skirting questions on his party’s view of a united opposition for next year’s general elections, Yadav said his slogan for the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh was: “Defeat 80, oust BJP (defeat BJP on all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh seats to oust it from power in the country).”
“The BJP will be defeated on all 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP if small parties as well as bigger anti-BJP national parties back us and show a big heart,” the former chief minister said, stressing that he had been maintaining that “the joint opposition should support the alliance partner which is strongest in a particular state. Whosoever is strongest, struggling against the BJP and is in a position to defeat the BJP in that particular state should be supported by the joint opposition in the state.”
He would stress this formula at the first joint opposition meeting on June 23 in Patna, Yadav added.
He cited his party’s earlier alliances with the Congress and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party for state and national elections, saying that the Samajwadi Party had always been an honest and accommodating ally.
“Wherever the SP was in alliance, fighting over seats was unheard of,” he said.
The SP won only five Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 general elections and lost two ( Rampur and Azamgarh) to the BJP in the by-elections. In the 2022 assembly polls, when Yadav allied with small regional parties, keeping the big anti-BJP parties out, the party’s tally improved from 47 in 2017 to 111 in 2022.
Asked whether defeating the BJP on all Lok Sabha seats in India’s most populous state was just a hope, Yadav said he had earlier made alliances with the Congress, Bahujan Samaj Party and other smaller parties. “These alliances were made because there was hope,” he said. “But, another key ingredient that is needed is a big heart, which is something our party has shown.”
On larger plans of opposition unity, he said the conclusion in all his meetings with leaders from other parties was that everyone should rally around parties that were getting votes and were strong in their respective states.
When Yadav was asked about Mayawati saying after their alliance ended in 2019 that there was no transfer of votes from his party, he said: “Data and arithmetic are there for all to see. The Samajwadi Party supported the Bahujan Samaj Party with honesty and a big heart because we believe in Dr BR Ambedkar’s dream.”
“The result of this was that while no one else could defeat the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, they lost the maximum number of seats in Uttar Pradesh,” Yadav pointed out.
He also stressed the need for a caste census for social justice.
Speaking at the same event, after Akhilesh’s turn, UP deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said: “We had won 73 seats in 2014. We have to take 7 steps more to make it 80. By winning all 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP, we have pledged to make Modiji the Prime Minister the third time over...While we are clear that Modiji will be the PM, the opposition is still struggling to find its PM face.”
Speaking at the same event, after Akhilesh’s turn, UP deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said: “We had won 73 seats in 2014. We have to take 7 steps more to make it 80. By winning all 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP, we have pledged to make Modiji the Prime Minister again...
