Nearly three months after the drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections, Samajwadi Party has started the process for overhauling the party organisation.

Officially, the SP leadership has initiated this exercise in view of the upcoming by-election to 13 UP Assembly seats. The objective is to weed out the dead wood, and particularly those owing allegiance to party parliamentarians and other leaders who recently defected to the Bharatiya Janata Party.

According to sources in the SP, party president Akhilesh Yadav has been nudged by his father Mulayam Singh Yadav to convene the national executive meeting at the earliest to discuss all issues.

The sources said the meeting of the highest forum of the party would facilitate the process for revamping the organisation. They said the party was likely to bring new faces as party spokesmen.

The sources said the party had also decided against contesting the upcoming Assembly elections in Haryana and would focus completely on strengthening the organisation in UP and prepare for the bypolls to 13 UP assembly seats.

The SP, however, may offer support to any like-minded party in Haryana.

A senior leader said on condition of anonymity that the top leadership was completely focusing on restructuring the organisation after the disastrous performance in the recent Lok Sabha polls. “Our focus is to outflank the BJP in upcoming by-elections and 2022 UP Assembly polls. Party leaders and workers have already been told to reach out to the people and highlight the failures of the Yogi Adityanath government, including deteriorating law and order,” they said.

Meanwhile, Bahujan Samaj Party, which ended its alliance with the SP after the general elections, has tied up with Jannayak Janata Party-led by OP Chautala’s grandson Dushyant for the upcoming Haryana polls.

Both SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati had formed an alliance ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls forgetting the old rivalry, but failed to stop the BJP juggernaut in UP.

SP faced the biggest setback in UP after the party lost its strongholds Kannauj, Budaun and Ferozabad to the BJP. The party could only manage to win five Lok Sabha seats from UP. It is currently grappling with problems like a weakening organisation, infighting and its prominent leaders joining the BJP.