Hoping to dent Akhilesh's sway over Yadavs, BJP deploys Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav

Lucknow: Apparently eyeing the core vote bank of its arch-rival Samajwadi Party (SP), the BJP has decided to deploy Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav in the 'Yadav'-dominated Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh for the forthcoming Parliamentary elections.

As part of the saffron party's outreach to the 'Yadav' community, the MP CM held a meeting with BJP functionaries in Azamgarh, a Samajwadi Party stronghold formerly represented by party chief Akhilesh Yadav in the Lok Sabha before he resigned from the seat and opted to enter the UP assembly.

Azamgarh has long been considered a traditional stronghold of the Samajwadi Party, and even in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the SP and its then alliance partner, the BSP, secured victory in both seats in the district. The 'Yadav' and Muslim community voters play pivotal roles in determining the outcomes of elections in both seats within the district.

CM Mohan Yadav, currently serving as an MLA from the Ujjain South assembly constituency in Madhya Pradesh, has ties to Uttar Pradesh as well, as his wife is from Sultanpur district in the state. "I have a special relationship with Azamgarh and UP," he told reporters during his visit to Azamgarh.

According to BJP sources, the MP CM will be visiting other Yadav-dominated Lok Sabha constituencies such as Mainpuri, Firozabad, Kannauj, Farrukhabad, and others in the lead-up to the Lok Sabha polls. He will hold meetings there to woo voters from the Yadav community.

Despite the BJP's success in consolidating its support among the OBCs in Uttar Pradesh since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the Yadav community remains firmly allied with the Samajwadi Party, and the saffron party's efforts to sway this allegiance have not yet been successful.

Nevertheless, the BJP leadership in the state believes that deploying Mohan Yadav in the Yadav-dominated seats in UP could potentially weaken the traditional SP vote bank.

Senior SP leader and party general secretary Shivpal Singh Yadav, however, dismissed suggestions that the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister could erode his party's core vote bank. "UP is not MP... the people will reject BJP due to its anti-people and anti-farmer policies," he stated.