In a belated move, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday dissolved all units of the party in Uttar Pradesh, including the state executive, district and youth wings and the frontal organisations.
The SP, however, retained state president Naresh Uttam.
The move is seen as an attempt towards course correction in the party after its Lok Sabha poll debacle and the recent exodus from the party at various levels, including Rajya Sabha members, to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“Party president Akhilesh Yadav has dissolved the state executive. All district executives and the executives of youth and other wings have also been dissolved and the new executives will be constituted soon,” said SP state president Naresh Uttam.
The surprise development is being seen as an attempt by the SP to recover its electoral base after its poor performance in the recent Lok Sabha polls in which it could win only five seats — the same as in 2014 — despite stitching a pre-poll alliance with Bahujan Samaj Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal.
Much to the SP’s chagrin, while its tally remained stuck at five, the alliance benefited Mayawati’s BSP, which bagged 10 seats in the state. The BSP had drawn a blank in the 2014 parliamentary polls.
What rubbed salt to the SP’s wound was the shock defeat of Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav who had entered the fray as a sitting MP, representing the Kannauj Lok Sabha constituency.
Just a day after the Lok Sabha results were declared, the SP chief had sacked the panel of leaders appointed as party spokespersons for TV channels. The appointment of all party panellists was cancelled in one stroke by the SP chief, who also said that no TV channel should invite any of them for debates.
A party insider said Akhilesh Yadav began churning within the organisation the very day the results were out, with over a dozen Assembly by-polls not far away, and the bigger target of 2022 Assembly elections in mind.
“After the Lok Sabha polls, party president Akhilesh Yadav has been meeting people and taking feedback from party workers and office-bearers. After going through all the aspects, the party executives will be reorganised with new ‘josh’ (enthusiasm) to take on the BJP,” party chief spokesman Rajendra Chowdhury said.
The Lok Sabha election debacle for the Samajwadi Party is the second instance when Akhilesh Yadav has miscalculated his moves.
He had tried his hand at coalition-building in Uttar Pradesh in the 2017 Assembly elections as well, teaming up with Congress. His father and party’s founding leader Mulayam Singh Yadav had advised him against the tie-up but he was ignored. The SP-Congress alliance failed miserably and BJP’s Yogi Adityanath replaced Akhilesh Yadav as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls also, Mulayam Singh Yadav had advised Akhilesh not to form alliance with the BSP. The veteran leader’s advice was not heeded to again.
In 2017, Akhilesh had harped upon development agenda during his stint to attract voters. His ‘’kaam bolta hai’’ (work speaks for itself) slogan failed to resonate among UP voters. The BJP had countered it by saying ‘Akhilesh kaa karnama bolta hai’.
In 2019, Akhilesh Yadav had decided to go back to the tried and tested caste-based calculations to win seats but he failed again.
Having suffered back-to-back three electoral defeats, Akhilesh now faces a daunting task of not only regaining the people’s confidence in the party but also assuring them of its own identity in state and national politics, some party leaders said.
In 2012, after a stint as president of the SP’s UP unit, Akhilesh was picked up by his father to become the state’s youngest ever chief minister at 38.
In the early years of his term as SP unit chief and the chief minister, Akhilesh struggled with his father’s legacy — tackling politicians like DP Yadav, Amar Singh and Mohammad Azam Khan. His uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav brought in mafia Mukhtar Ansari’s Quami Ekta Dal into the SP against his will. Another uncle, Ram Gopal Yadav, backed Akhilesh as he tackled dissension in the party and the Yadav clan.
Just ahead of the 2017 Assembly polls, Akhilesh staged a “coup” of sorts when at an emergency convention of the party in January that year, Mulayam Singh Yadav was ousted as national president of the party and relegated to the insignificant ‘post’ of patron. Later, the BJP was to call him Aurangzeb, recalling what one Mughal emperor had done to his own father.
After the ‘coup, the two SP factions went to the Election Commission, which ruled in Akhilesh’s favour, allowing his group to retain the ‘’bicycle’ poll symbol.
