Lucknow
The Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) has given more tickets to the Muslims than to the Yadavs in the high-stakes 2022 Uttar Pradesh (UP) elections.
The party, which is contesting 348 of the total 403 UP assembly seats, has nominated 53 Muslim candidates compared to 45 Yadav candidates.
This way, the SP has distributed 98, or nearly 30 per cent, of the tickets to the Muslim-Yadav (MY) candidates.
Traditionally, the MY combine – devised by party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav – has been the party’s standard template.
Moreover, the socialist party has sought to accommodate other castes and communities in the tricky ticket distribution process to keep them in good humour for the seven-phase UP polling.
The SP has given nearly 70 tickets to the Dalit candidates, followed by Brahmins and Rajputs with 21 and 20 nominations respectively.
For the remaining seats, candidates belonging to other prominent castes and communities, including non-Muslim minorities and non-Yadav other backward classes (OBCs) such as Patel, Maurya, Kushwaha etc., have been fielded.
While the SP is fighting on 348 seats, it has offered 55 seats to its allies including Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), Apna Dal (K), Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) etc. The RLD and SBSP have been allotted 33 and 18 assembly segments respectively.
Interestingly, some of the allies’ candidates are also fighting on the SP symbol. This has been done with the purpose of ensuring they do not defect to rival parties post-election. In case they do, they shall be disqualified from the UP assembly membership under the anti-defection law.
In 2017, the Akhilesh Yadav-led SP had allied with the Congress for the UP polls. However, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) toppled its government in the state by cornering 325, or more than 75 per cent, of the Assembly seats.
The SP vote percentage in 2017 UP polls had slipped to 21.82 per cent from 29.13 per cent in 2012.
Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the SP had allied with the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Yet, the pre-poll alliance failed to stop the BJP juggernaut with the SP and BSP tally standing at 5 and 10 respectively out of the total 80 Lok Sabha seats.