Samajwadi Party's bastions under threat

The Samajwadi Party (SP) is facing an existential crisis three decades after its formation as it prepares for bypolls in Mainpuri Lok Sabha and Rampur Sadar Assembly seats — both its strongholds — on December 5.

Despite trying several political experiments, the SP has failed to stop the BJP’s juggernaut in Uttar Pradesh. Now, the BJP, as it showed by winning bypolls in the SP bastions of Rampur and Azamgarh Lok Sabha seats in June, is snapping at the SP’s heels in the latter’s pocket boroughs.

Dimple Yadav, former MP from Kannauj and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s wife, will file her nomination for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha bypoll on Monday, a seat the SP has been winning since 1996.

Read | Dimple no match to Mulayam, BJP will win Mainpuri Lok Sabha bypoll: UP minister

The bypoll was necessitated after the demise of Mulayam Singh Yadav, and its result will have a bearing on the fate of the party he founded in 1992. SP leader Azam Khan will decide on the candidate for Rampur.

The Mainpuri parliamentary and Rampur (Sadar) Assembly seats are Yadav and Muslim-dominated constituencies, two communities that have been traditional voters of the SP for decades. But to win these seats against a galvanised BJP, Akhilesh would need to integrate the OBCs-Muslims alliances.

The Narendra Modi factor has not only chipped away the OBC support from the SP, but even Muslims are also annoyed with Akhilesh because of his silence on atrocities against them. In the Azamgarh and Rampur Lok Sabha bypolls, Muslims did not vote for the SP as enthusiastically as they had in the assembly elections in March 2022.

In Azamgarh, upset with Akhilesh’s failure to speak against atrocities on Muslims, just as his father did, had a section vote for the BSP’s Guddu Jamali. The split in votes ensured the defeat of SP’s Dharmendra Yadav to the BJP’s Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’. Earlier this month, the BJP retained the Gola Gokarannath assembly seat of Lakhimpur Kheri.

Some believe that Akhilesh took the Rampur and Azamgarh bypolls in June for granted since the seats have a significant population of Muslims, which contributed to the losses.

The Yadav family feud has also weakened the party, and in Mainpuri, his uncle Shivpal Yadav was keen to contest.

A seasoned leader, Shivpal continuing to be upset could hurt the SP. The only option with Akhilesh is to persuade Shivpal to merge his Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) into the SP and offer his uncle a significant role in the party. However, the party’s insiders say Akhilesh doesn’t want Shivpal anymore.

As for Rampur, party sources said Akhilesh doesn’t want to interfere in the Rampur bypoll, leaving the selection of the candidate on Azam Khan, who could field his daughter-in-law Sidra Khan. She managed Azam Khan’s election campaign for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls while he was in jail.

(The writer is a Lucknow-based journalist)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.