LUCKNOW: In his bid to consolidate his political strategy of winning over Brahmin-Dalit electorate in the run-up to the 2022 Assembly elections and taking his party beyond the Muslim-Yadav factor, national president of the Samajwadi Party has been visiting temples and religious places in eastern UP for the past three days.
Akhilesh has now realised that to emerge victorious at the hustings, the SP would have to come out of the M-Y mould, bringing people of different castes and communities in the party-fold, say political analysts.
Since Thursday, the former chief minister has been camping in and around Varanasi. He has visited Jaunpur for a social programme and will visit Vindhyachal temple in Mirzapur on Saturday. On Thursday, Akhilesh offered prayers at Sankat Mochan temple, spending a substantial time at a famous ashram, seeking blessings of saints and seers. On Saturday, he is also scheduled to visit the Ravidas temple in Varanasi's Seer Gowardhanpur on the occasion of the birth anniversary of the dalit saint.
In a well-calculated move, Akhilesh has decided to spend three days in Varanasi as he knows well that Varanasi is the social and political epicentre of eastern UP and the spiritual city has a tremendous influence in adjoining areas. Besides, priests and Brahmins of Varanasi have a powerful presence in the socio-political set-up of the state. Before Varanasi, Akhilesh had camped in Chitrakoot in Bundelkhand where Lord Ram had spent 12 years of his 14-year exile. For the Samajwadis, the holy place of Chitrakoot has a special significance as the great thinker and ideologue Ram Manohar Lohia, who had strongly advocated for holding a Ramayan Mela in this tiny hilly region, often meditated on the Kamadgiri hills to give a call for demolishing his political opponents.
Akhilesh had also stayed at the Kamadgiri temple last week and exhorted party workers to unite against parties exploiting the name of Sri Ram for petty political motives.
With his temple visits in and around Varanasi and specially his visit to Swaminarayan temple in Ayodhya on Saturday, Akhilesh is eyeing on social groups which have not been committed to him – the Brahmins and Scheduled Castes.
In the past six months, a number of Brahmin and Dalit leaders, including former MPs, former ministers and ex-MLAs, have joined the SP, vowing to work for the party’s victory in 2022 Assembly elections. Last week, former BSP minister Jai Narain Tewari had joined the SP.
At a programme in Jaunpur on Thursday Akhilesh invited Om Prakash Dubey, locally known as Baba Dubey of his party, to sit next to him, while the sitting MLAs were seen standing behind him. The message was loud and clear --- the SP is desperately trying to make a respectable space for Brahmins.
Akhilesh has been meeting powerful Brahmin leaders of the Congress, BSP and other parties and most of them have hinted at joining him at an appropriate time before the elections. Akhilesh, by visiting temples and seeking blessings of sadhus, has made it clear that he too needs the support of the Brahmin community.
In order to further consolidate Akhilesh’s appeal among Brahmins, Santosh Pandey, senior party leader and former MLA, has announced to install a life-size statue of the Parashuram in Lucknow post panchayat elections. Pandey has been undertaking extensive tours of the state to mobilize Brahmins’ support for the SP.
“The statue of Parashuram has already arrived in Lucknow and the programme would be finalised after obtaining a green signal from the SP national president,” Pandey said.