The Samajwadi Party, desperate to craft a credible narrative ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, is organising cadre training camps and has stepped up attacks on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The SP has so far organised training camps at Banda and Fatehpur districts and also intends to intensify the campaign for caste-based census.
SP president Akhilesh Yadav is taking on the Hindutva agenda of the BJP and also questioning the role of the RSS in the freedom struggle.
“RSS, the mother organisation of the BJP, had opposed the call for Quit India Movement in 1942. To hide their dark deeds of the past, the BJP had called for hoisting the flag at each household,” Akhilesh Yadav said in Fatehpur on Friday.
“The RSS had not cooperated with Mahatma Gandhi and socialists spearheading the freedom movement,” he added.
Akhilesh also reminded the BJP that “along with the history of temples, there is also the history of our syncretic culture of Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb and if we do not wake up, the BJP will push everyone into an uncertain darkness.”
Speaking at a cadre training camp in Banda on Thursday, Akhilesh said: “When we talk of the history of Bundelkhand, we remember the contribution of Rani Lakshmibai first. She stood here against the British for her rights, as did Jhalkaribai. When we remember Chitrokoot, the first name that comes to our mind is Bhagwan Ram. We can’t forget Goswami Tulsidas.”
The SP president said, “All the Samajwadis here think of Hanuman Chalisa too. Some people have it memorised. The history is also of the cannon burst that left Sher Shah Suri wounded. I understand that history keeps moving ahead. Where there is the history of temples here, there is also the history of our Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb.”
Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his Independence Day speech, Akhilesh said: “You should tell him that he should hear his earlier speeches from the Red Fort. He had said he would double the income of farmers. Has that happened?”
Claiming that all the 80 Lok Sabha seats of Uttar Pradesh would be won by the opposition alliance INDIA in 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Akhilesh said: “INDIA and PDA (Pichda, Dalit and Alpsankhyak) together will be winning 80 out of the 80 seats. We are going to win as the BJP failed to fulfill its promises. Missiles were not made, tanks were not made, water never reached here (in Bundelkhand), stray animals have not gone, migration hasn’t stopped, there is massive unemployment, there is no drought relief, no help in flood, and no work has been completed.”
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections , the SP won only five seats. It failed to make headway in the 2019 polls, winning five seats in the state despite having an alliance with the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party.
In the 2022 assembly polls, the SP failed to unseat the BJP from power in Uttar Pradesh and could win only 111 of the 403 seats despite forging a rainbow coalition. The SP leaders are, however, optimistic that the tide will turn in the next year’s Lok Sabha elections, with the training programme playing a key part.
The party says the idea behind a training workshop is to “train” workers in how to communicate with people before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. “The BJP can turn lies into truth. We are teaching them to be ready to take on any challenge in the coming year or so,” a party leader said.
Along with Akhilesh Yadav, state unit president Naresh Uttam Patel, party general secretary Shivpal Yadav, and other prominent leaders such as Lalji Verma, Ram Achal Rajbhar, and Arvind Singh Gop are scheduled to speak at these programmes.
