North India Statesman
Hours after Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav announced his party’s decision not to contest a third seat in the Uttar Pradesh Rajya Sabha biennial elections and shift focus to all 403 assembly seats, Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief Om Prakash Rajbhar launched a sharp political offensive. Dismissing Yadav’s explanation as face-saving rhetoric following a failure to muster required numbers, Rajbhar labeled the opposition’s retreat as “Taan-Taan Fiss” (a complete damp squib).
Rajbhar Calls 403 Assembly Focus ‘Daydreaming’
Reacting directly to Akhilesh Yadav’s social media statement that the SP’s gaze has turned from “three to 403,” Rajbhar remarked that dreaming during the daytime is not prohibited, but running away from electoral arithmetic shows political helplessness. The SBSP chief contended that the Samajwadi Party had actively explored cross-voting and back-channel alliances to secure an extra seat. However, after realizing that the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) held a solid numerical advantage and their own MLAs might not fall in line, the SP opted to withdraw before facing outright defeat on the assembly floor, Rajbhar claimed.
Questions Raised Over SP’s Social Engineering and PDA Formula
The fiery rhetoric follows Rajbhar’s continuous scrutiny of the Samajwadi Party’s candidate selection criteria. Earlier in the week, Rajbhar had publicly questioned whether the Samajwadi Party’s candidate pool truly represented its much-touted PDA (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak) framework, alleging that the upper leadership prioritizes dynastic and elite loyalists over ground-level backward and minority leaders. He further warned the SP leadership that attempting an uncalculated floor fight for a third seat could have endangered their secure candidates, suggesting that fear of internal cross-voting forced Yadav’s hand.
Escalating Rhetoric Ahead of Mission 2027
The war of words underscores the mounting political rivalry between the BJP-led NDA alliance and the Samajwadi Party across the Purvanchal belt. While the opposition maintains that bypassing the Rajya Sabha contest was a deliberate calculation to avoid horse-trading and concentrate organizational machinery on the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, ruling NDA allies are leveraging the withdrawal to project vulnerability and strategic disorientation within the Samajwadi camp.
