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Time of India
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
UP BJP org rejig: Dalits, OBCs likely to weigh in prominently
1 2 Lucknow: OBC and Dalit communities are expected to weigh in prominently as the BJP gears up to reboot its organisational machinery at the ground level by inducting around 90,000 functionaries in over 1,500 out of 1,918 mandals (divisions). Sources said the party plans to recalibrate 80% of the mandals — a local organisational unit within the party's hierarchical structure — even as the party draws up a broader blueprint of a strategy to counter opposition in the run-up to the 2027 UP assembly polls. A mandal is a key operational layer in the BJP's grassroots machinery, enabling it to maintain a strong local presence. It is one level below a district and usually corresponds to a group of a few municipal wards or several village panchayats, mainly a sub-division within a district for efficient grassroots-level political and organisational functioning. According to BJP sources, the party will appoint over 60 functionaries in each of the over 1,500 mandals where the party has already appointed a president. A similar exercise will be undertaken in the remaining over 400 mandals after the appointment of presidents. The new team is expected to have a sizable presence of OBC, Dalit and women functionaries, a move that could align with BJP's focus on strengthening its grassroots presence and bolstering its social coalition, which catapulted the party to an overwhelming majority in UP in the 2017 and 2022 assembly elections. The induction of OBC and Dalit functionaries at the grassroots, experts said, could allow the BJP to counter the opposition's Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak (PDA) card, which dented the party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections by shrinking its tally from 62 to 33 in UP. A senior BJP functionary said the induction of a good number of women functionaries at the mandal level is also on the cards. Speculations are rife that women may comprise around 33% of the total functionaries at the mandal level. Is that happens then it would be a strategic move by the party, which has been prioritising gender inclusivity by ensuring significant representation of women functionaries in the new appointments. The party also plans to engage the upper caste leadership strategically at the grassroots level as part of its broader organisational revamp. While OBCs and Dalits form the numerical majority and a critical voter bloc, upper castes (like Brahmins, Thakurs, Baniya, and Kayasthas) have traditionally been a core support base for the BJP. The party aims to retain their influence while expanding its appeal to marginalised groups. In March this year, the party had named 70 new district presidents, of whom 39 were from the upper caste, 25 were OBCs and six Scheduled Caste.
Indian Express
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
‘Half Akhilesh, half Ambedkar': Why an SP poster has BJP, BSP fuming
Amid the Samajwadi Party's (SP) efforts to reach out to the Dalit community, a poster featuring party chief Akhilesh Yadav and Dr B R Ambedkar has not gone down well with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the BJP, which have accused the SP of insulting the architect of the Constitution. The poster places a photo of half of Akhilesh's face close to a similar cutout of Ambedkar's image. While Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said the SP was attempting to garner Dalit votes despite 'sitting on the lap of the Congress, which ensured Ambedkar's loss in the 1952 election', BSP's Uttar Pradesh president Vishwanath Pal told The Indian Express that SP leaders, including party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav and Akhilesh, never 'respected Ambedkar'. 'The SP government renamed districts that were named after Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram while top SP leaders referred to the BSP government-built Ambedkar memorial in Lucknow as 'ayyashi ka adda (place for debauchery)'. The poster is a grave insult to Baba Saheb,' Pal said. Drama unfolded after the poster was put up outside the party headquarters in Lucknow on Monday by the SP's frontal organisation Samajwadi Lohia Vahini. The Vahini's president, Abhishek Yadav, defended the move saying, 'Akhilesh ji is the only one who can fulfil Ambedkar's dreams of ensuring social justice to deprived classes.' On X, the SP termed Ambedkar a 'messiah of the Pichhda (Backward Classes) , Dalit, Alpsankhyak (Minorities)' — the focus on these communities, dubbed the PDA strategy, is the SP's attempt to broaden its voter base — and accused the 'samanti sarkar (feudal government)' of insulting him. SP spokesperson Ashutosh Verma also defended Abhishek Yadav and the Vahini. 'A party worker is giving out a symbolic message that Akhilesh is leading the way in protecting the Constitution but the BJP, with its narrow mindset, is trying to divert the attention of people from core issues,' Verma said. Sources within the SP said the party's bid to claim the legacy of Ambedkar and honour him gained momentum after Akhilesh took over 2017, with its efforts to consolidate Dalit votes visibly increasing after it registered its best-ever Lok Sabha performance last year — it won 37 seats — seemingly riding on the 'save the Constitution' and PDA planks. Last December, the SP launched its 'PDA charcha' initiative to highlight Ambedkar's legacy while its leaders have been raising the issue of BJP 'insulting the architect of the Constitution' regularly in their addresses. SP and the Dalit vote SP insiders pointed to Mulayam Singh Yadav's 'regard' for Ambedkar's ideology, citing the SP's support to BSP founder Kanshi Ram in the 1991 Etawah Lok Sabha polls. The win, they claim, laid the foundation for the SP-BSP alliance and the composition of a new constituency comprising the Dalits and the OBCs. Ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, for the first time since its inception, the SP formed a dedicated wing for Dalits — the Samajwadi Baba Saheb Ambedkar Vahini — with an aim to 'take forward the ideologies of Ambedkar and socialist icon Ram Manohar Lohia'. In 2023, Akhilesh claimed that the 'samajwadi movement' launched by Mulayam Singh and Lohia and the path shown by Ambedkar and Kanshi Ram were the same and urged his party workers to walk this path. Akhilesh unveiled an Ambedkar statue in Etawah on his birth anniversary on April 14 and referred to him as the greatest scholar, economist, social reformer and lawyer that the country had seen. The SP also ran a week-long 'Ambedkar Jayanti Swabhiman Samman Samaroh' campaign to reach out to prominent Dalits across the state and felicitate them. Chequered past The SP and the BSP first joined hands in the 1993 Assembly elections. Though the BJP emerged as the single-largest party, winning 174 of the 425 seats, the SP-BSP combine that collectively won 176 seats went on to form the government headed by Mulayam with the support of the Congress (28), the Janata Dal (7), and smaller outfits. Barely two years after forming the government, differences emerged between the SP and the BSP, following which Mayawati withdrew support in June 1995 and went on to take oath as the CM with the support of the BJP. However, her government lasted only for four months. The SP and the BSP grew further apart and after the SP assumed power on its own in Uttar Pradesh in 2012, Akhilesh scrapped as many as 26 welfare schemes for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) initiated by Mayawati. His government also did away with reservation for SCs in government contracts. The two parties came together again for the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls in 2018, winning both. Buoyed by their success, the SP and the BSP joined hands with then Ajit Singh-led Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) to float the Mahagathbandhan for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. However, the SP and the BSP snapped ties following the alliance's poor performance in the polls in which Akhilesh's party won five seats and Mayawati's party bagged 10 of the state's 80 parliamentary constituencies.
The Hindu
28-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Ramji Lal Suman's attackers had govt. support: Akhilesh
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday said the attack on party MP Ramji Lal Suman's convoy on Sunday indicated that the attackers had the support of the government. While demanding strict action against the culprits, he said his party workers will not take the law into their own hands as they believe in democracy, law, and the Constitution. 'Under the BJP government, PDA (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak, or backward classes, Dalits, and minorities) are being selectively attacked. Some people have a free hand under the ruling regime; they are openly flouting law and order,' Mr. Yadav said at a press conference. Mr. Suman was attacked because he was going to Sunhara village in Bulandshahr to raise his voice against those who were oppressing Dalits, he added. 'The attack on Sumanji was done to scare him. The attackers have the support of the government and the DGP. But neither are we going to be scared of an attack nor of anyone's threats. Those who are threatening us or Sumanji are not challenging us but the CM and the DGP,' said the SP president. Mr. Yadav pitched for broader unity of the marginalised sections, projecting the SP as a platform for establishing economic equality and social justice. 'The fight of socialists is for the establishment of the rule of economic equality and social justice. The SP will wipe out the BJP from U.P. The day we succeed in establishing the rule of social justice, many problems will be solved,' he said. He also vowed to stand with the government unitedly against terrorism.
Time of India
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
In Dalit outreach, BJP to tap 300 SC intellectuals in every UP district
Lucknow: In a strategic move, the BJP has charted out an exhaustive plan to tap at least 300 Dalit intellectuals in each district of Uttar Pradesh to bolster its SC outreach campaign, which was kicked off by the party on the birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar earlier this month. In this way, the BJP aims to reach out to nearly 22,500 educated and influential people within the Dalit community—a move that could potentially help the saffron outfit counter the opposition's Pichhda, Dalit, Alpasankhyak (PDA) narrative, which is said to have dented the party in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Sources said the party think tank roped in its SC Morcha to carry out the drive while aiming to augment its grassroots machinery through the deployment of more Dalit functionaries at the booth, sector and mandal levels. UP BJP SC Morcha chief Ram Chandra Kannaujia said teams comprising at least 25 Dalit functionaries have been constituted for the purpose. "Each team would reach out to five people from the SC intellectuals and apprise them of the initiatives taken by the party for the welfare of the Dalits in the last 10 years," he said. Kannaujia said it will be a comprehensive drive aimed at strengthening the party's organisational network while neutralising the opposition's campaign vis-à-vis Dalits. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Free P2,000 GCash eGift UnionBank Credit Card Apply Now Undo Sources said the BJP plans to convince the influential class to help the party consolidate the poorer sections from Dalit, which, they say, tend to get swayed by the opposition. The development draws a stark contrast with the RSS's Hindutva plank. Recently RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat gave a clarion call of "ek mandir, ek kuan, ek shamshaan" (one temple, one well, one cremation ground), which underscored the Sangh's assertive bid to blur caste lines within the Hindu community. The BJP's strategy of balancing its Dalit-specific outreach campaign with its core Hindutva ideology , experts said, highlights its nuanced approach. By tapping into the Dalit intellectuals, the party seeks to secure support from this crucial social group while maintaining the broader appeal of Hindutva that has been central to its identity since the peak of the Ram Temple movement of the 1990s. This dual approach allows the BJP to engage with the Dalit communities strategically—as seen in its SC-focused campaigns—while continuing to leverage its Hindutva rhetoric to strengthen its base, especially among upper-caste Hindus. The blend of these two approaches is seen to consolidate a wide-ranging coalition of voters— something which has proved successful for the party since 2014 when the party rose like a political behemoth under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi. Analysts say that the BJP, nevertheless, will face the challenge of balancing these competing efforts without alienating any caste group.
Hindustan Times
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Akhilesh hits back at DGP over caste-based postings, seeks CM's response
A day after Uttar Pradesh DGP Prashant Kumar termed caste-based posting allegations 'baseless and misleading,' Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav intesified his attack on the state government on Tuesday, demanding the chief minister's response instead. Citing data that he claimed to be retrieved from the UP Police website, Yadav said that officials from the 'Kshatriya' community dominated key postings, while officers from PDA (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) communities remained underrepresented. Addressing a press conference at the SP headquarters in Lucknow, Yadav said, 'DGP sahab should speak less; at the very least, the chief minister should address this.' 'We are playing our role of opposition in a democracy, but instead of listening to us and rectifying their mistake, the government has put an officer to confront us. If our data is wrong, then let the government release a correct, name-wise list of SHOs posted in various districts.' 'The CM must respond and clarify,' he added. A day earlier, Akhilesh had shared similar claims on social media platform X, stating that in districts like Agra, Mainpuri, and Chitrakoot, the majority of SHOs belonged to the 'Kshatriya' community. 'In Agra, out of 48 police stations, only 15 SHOs are from the PDA — Backward, Dalit, and Minority communities. The rest are all from the 'Singh bhai log',' Yadav said in Prayagraj on Sunday, using a colloquial term to refer to the Thakur community. The UP Police, however, rejected the claims. 'Responsible people should refrain from giving misleading facts,' UP DGP Prashant Kumar had said on Monday. Reacting to the allegations, UP minister of state for social welfare (independent charge), Asim Arun, said, 'The facts are in front of everyone. Akhilesh Ji should remember that during his tenure, recruitment in the police department was stalled. It was Yogi Ji who resumed the process, he said. 'That system was restored by the BJP government, and over the past eight years, 1.6 lakh appointments have been made. Another 30,000 will be recruited soon,' he said. Comments on Waqf Act, Murshidabad violence On the Waqf Act 2025 and statements made by a BJP MP, Yadav said, 'We request the Honourable Court to take note of the widespread opposition. SP voted against the bill in Parliament. The threats issued to the judiciary by BJP's favourite MP Nishikant Dubey (without taking his name) reflect what the BJP cannot say directly, so it is done indirectly.' He also commented on the recent violence in West Bengal's Murshidabad district, saying, 'Many arrests have been made and action is underway. But BJP only knows how to derive political benefits from riots. They want to spread hate.' Clarification on SP MP's statement in Agra rape case Akhilesh also defended party Rajya Sabha MP Ramji Lal Suman, whose recent remarks on a rape case in Agra drew criticism. 'He didn't say anything wrong. Maybe it was the way he said it. As an SP representative, he was meeting the victim. This is what our party has always done—whether in Agra or elsewhere, our people are the first to stand with the victims,' Yadav said. He alleged that the BJP was deliberately attempting to distort the MP's statement for political mileage.
