Akhilesh Yadav Makes a Comeback in U.P.

: Akhilesh Yadav’s stock rose dramatically with his Samajwadi Party cutting the BJP to size in Uttar Pradesh. The SP was leading on 37 seats as against the BJP’s 33 seats. The tally is a spoiler for the BJP which had claimed it will sweep the state from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an MP.

From winning five seats in the last election in partnership with the BSP, Akhilesh’s party in UP has dealt a bodyblow to the BJP, which had in 2019 won 62 seats on its own. This was the first general election after the death of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, and Akhilesh did not disappoint, to the extent, it now leads on more seats than won in the 2004 election. The turnaround for the Opposition came even as Akhilesh, along with Rahul Gandhi, was disparaged as “Do ladko ki jodi” often by Modi.

The acronym PDA Pichchde (backward classes), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities) coined by Akhilesh appears to have worked for the party. At the latest count, the SP was ahead of the BJP even on the Faizabad Lok Sabha seat, despite Ram temple in Ayodhya being a talking point for the saffron party throughout the run-up to the election. TMC, another INDIA bloc ally, was given the Bhadohi Lok Sabha seat in UP.

Akhilesh in his speeches decried the ruling dispensation's jailing Arvind Kejriwal, as well as JMM leader Hemant Soren, to highlights the BJP's putative highhandedness. He praised Lalu Prasad and his son Tejaswi Yadav, who were charge in of holding the alliance's fort in Bihar..