Lok Sabha Polls 2024 | Samajwadi Party sheds Muslim-Yadav tag to accommodate OBCs in UP

New Delhi: In a concerted bid to shed the tag of being a Muslim-Yadav outfit, the Samajwadi Party in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls has been very careful in its seat selection to accommodate non-dominant intermediary castes that have since 2014 mobilised around the BJP in Uttar Pradesh. 

In 62 out of 80 seats in UP it is contesting in alliance with the Congress, Akhilesh Yadav has for once shunned competitive minority politics to give only four tickets to the Muslims as against 20% of the community population in the state. 

Yadav has made some interesting choices in fielding Hindu candidates in seats with a more than 30% minority population, including Moradabad and Meerut. The second is a general seat where the SP has nominated a Dalit candidate. 

Unlike his father, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh has also been less accommodating of prominent Muslim faces and polarising figures like Azam Khan, the Rampur strongman who is behind bars. In Khan’s pocket borough, SP fielded a rank outsider despite objections by Azam Khan’s coterie. 

To blunt the accusation of being the ‘Yadav-centric’ party, SP has this time not given tickets to anyone from the community outside the immediate family. While Akhilesh and his wife Dimple Yadav are contesting from Kannauj and Manipuri, respectively, the three other cousins, Aditya, Akshay, and Dharmendra, are in the fray from Badaun, Firozabad, and Azamgarh. 

The space thus created by restricting Muslim-Yadav candidates has been allocated to the non-Yadav backward castes who were once united in the Mandal space but have since drifted away to the BJP in reaction to Yadav domination in SP.

The course correction being attempted by the SP is aimed at neutralising the BJP’s success in stitching alliances with sub-regional caste-based parties like Anupriya Patel’s Apna Dal, which has a support base among Kurmis, Sanjay Nishad’s Nishad Party, which has a following among the boatmen and riverine communities; and Om Prakash Rajbhar Suheldev’s Bharatiya Samaj Party. 

Tickets to non-Yadavs

The SP this time has allocated 26 tickets to non-Yadav backward communities. The biggest chunk (more than Yadavs) of nine has gone to Kurmis, followed by six seats to various sub-castes of traditional horticulturists like Maurya, Shakya, and Kushwaha. The party has also given tickets to four from the Nishad community. 

“We have studied Congress’ campaign and ticket distribution in Karnataka Assembly polls to mobilise communities who vote caste lines,” an SP leader told DH. 

SP has also been careful in ticket selection for the 17 reserved seats in UP. The party has fielded candidates from non-Jatav Dalits as Jatavs, the largest voting unit within the community, remain largely aligned with the BSP. 

The confidence to shun Yadav-Muslim politics in the SP seems to stem from its success in stitching an alliance with the Congress that could help the I.N.D.I.A bloc consolidate Muslim votes despite Mayawati’s BSP deciding to go solo in the elections. 

Out of the 17 seats allocated to the Congress in the alliance, the grand old party has fielded upper-caste candidates in most of the seats. Two seats have gone to Muslims, while three have gone to other backward castes. 

Out of its quota, SP has allocated one seat to the Trinamool Congress, where former UP CM Kalapati Tripathi’s grandson Lalitesh Tripathi is contesting from Mamata Banerjee’s party.