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With Unlock unfolding, Samajwadi Party is gearing up political activities aiming to activate cadre for the year-end panchayat polls and 2022 UP Assembly elections.
After three back-to-back debacles in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, 2017 UP Assembly elections and 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the stakes for the Samajwadi Party are naturally high.
The party is gearing up to deploy its might for the panchayat elections in December as its performance would lay the ground for the next assembly polls.
After a longish pause in political activities due to the lockdown, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has started establishing contact with party cadre and auxiliary outfits across the state and is reorganising district units.
From June first week, Akhilesh began making video calls to party leaders and revamping organisational restructure by appointing new chiefs in nine districts on June 10. The following day, two members from frontal outfits were expelled and last week, half-a-dozen leaders were appointed as spokespersons.
After the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the SP had disbanded its team of media spokesperson.
“We have resumed normal political activities.  Although party workers were active during lockdown with district units helping the poor and migrant labourers with food and ration, now the party chief has started making direct contact with units across the state through video conferencing and WhatsApp calls,” said SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary.
Akhilesh started reviews and feedback gathering from districts on June 3 and since then he has held discussions with leaders and office-bearers in Ayodhya, Bijnor, Mahoba, Kannauj, Gonda, Kanpur, Chandauli, Azamgarh, Siddharth Nagar, Farrukhabad, Sant Kabir Nagar, Agra, Ghazipur, Barabanki and Varanasi.
The interactions revolved around intensifying poll preparations for the assembly elections, consolidating respective district unit’s right up to booth level and reorganisation of booth committees, Chaudhary said.
The SP chief is now asking the cadre to “expose the Bharatiya Janata Party’s lies” by telling people about the BJP regime’s misadventures like demonetisation, GST and unplanned and dictatorial lockdowns to fight the pandemic.
Samajwadi Party cadre have also resumed protests, for which they are known. On June 8, Ghaziabad district chief Haji Rashid Malik and his team protested on bicycles at the gate of a closed cycle factory in the district. The protesters then submitted a memorandum to the Governor seeking the reopening of the factory. For the last six days, a former SP MLA in Kanpur has been sitting on dharna over drinking water problems.
“In the coming days, we would organise more protests and demonstrations. Except for Team-11 meetings every day, the government is doing nothing for the people. We are waiting for the next assembly session in which we will effectively corner the government,” Chaudhary said.