News Analysis India

Tag: Samajwadi Party

  • Akhilesh Yadav contests PM Modi’s claim over crime in Uttar Pradesh, asks him to check data

    By PTI

    LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday challenged Prime Minister Narerndra Modi’s claim about the crime situation in Uttar Pradesh, asking him to check data of the Home Department and other central agencies.

    At a function after laying the stone of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh State University in Aligarh, PM Modi earlier in the day said UP was run by gangsters and mafias before 2017. The Samajwadi Party (SP) was ruling the state then.

    In a scathing attack at the BJP, Yadav told reporters at a press conference here that it is good to set up a university but the party “runs the best training centre of telling lies”. He asked the BJP to pick “bulldozer” as its election symbol, referring to the alleged demolition of houses of some Ayodhya residents.

    Yadav also asked Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to get his eyesight tested, replying to the CM’s assertion that the Opposition leader lacked vision.

    Yadav told reporters that the UP government is not working according to the law and warned officials that his party is preparing a list of those who violated the law, stressing that they won’t be spared once his party’s government comes to power.

    When his attention was drawn to the PM’s comment over the law and order, Yadav said, “He should ask for the data of the Home Department or Dial 100 to see who is increasing the crime.” He asked the PM to go through the NCRB report and also see which state has been served maximum notices by the National Human Rights Commission.

    Yadav said the PM should also ask the Uttar Pradesh CM who are the top 10 mafia in the state. All are aware how the CM withdrew cases against himself, he said.

    He also accused the ruling party of failing to honour its own leaders, referring to the foundation laying of a university after former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lucknow in 2019 and asked about its status.

    He alleged that the government uses the work of other governments to honour its own leaders and assured that if his party came to power, they will set up a university or college at Vajpayee’s native Bateshwar village in Agra .

    “Even after over four years, this government is changing names and colours, claiming the work done by the SP government as its own. As they know that their government is on its way out, the language of its head has changed,” the SP chief said, apparently referring to CM Yogi’s “Abba Jaan” jibe in Kushinagar recently.

    He said a few years ago when the CM had gone to Kushinagar, children and the poor were given soaps and shampoos to first take a bath and then meet him. Such a person cannot develop the state, he said. To Yogi’s assertion that Akhilesh Yadav lacked vision, the SP leader asked the CM to get his eyesight tested.

    He also suggested that the BJP should pick “bulldozer” as its election symbol after two Ayodhya residents from the Ramkot area told him that their houses were razed by the administration.

    Maniram Yadav told the former CM that they have been living in the area for the past three generations and believed that their “achchey din” will come once the Ram temple is constructed but now “feel like committing suicide”.

    Countering claims of the state government that unauthorised buildings have been demolished, the former CM said there are many houses, specially very old ones that do not have layouts passed by the authorities, citing the example of the official residence of the CM in Lucknow.

    He assured that once his party comes to power, it will restore the dignity of those whose houses have been demolished by building new ones for them.

  • Political parties throw enough hints Uttar Pradesh polls will pivot around Ayodhya

    By PTI

    LUCKNOW: With the upcoming assembly polls being Uttar Pradesh’s first since the verdict in the Babri Masjid case, political parties have thrown hints the battle will pivot around the issue and have used Ayodhya as a launch pad of sorts for their campaign.

    The Supreme Court’s 2019 verdict paving the way for the construction of the Ram temple at the disputed site has brought the Ayodhya issue back to the centrestage ahead of the crucial polls. Political parties including the BJP, the Samajwadi Party the BSP have been using Ayodhya to launch their campaigns as momentum builds for the 2022 polls.

    New entrants like the Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM and smaller parties including the Jansatta Loktantrik Dal, led by Kunda MLA (independent) Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, are also using the city to being the campaigns.

    The Ayodhya assembly constituency is currently represented by the BJP’s Ved Prakash Gupta.

    With Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself performing the ‘bhoomi pujan’ on August 5, 2020 for a grand temple, and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath frequently visiting the holy town, the saffron party has been trying to keep the issue alive.

    The BJP on September 5 began its ‘Prabudh sammelan’ (meeting of intellectuals) from Ayodhya, with its state chief Swatantra Dev Singh addressing a gathering there.

    The UP BJP president made it a point to remind people how former prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1966 had ordered firing on saints who had gathered around Parliament, while the Samajwadi Party in 1990 ordered firing on the devotees of Lord Ram in Ayodhya. “These bullets were fired on India’s culture and ideology of nationalism. The entire India reposes its faith in Lord Ram,” Singh had said.

    Elaborating on the importance Ayodhya for the BJP, its state spokesperson Manish Shukla told PTI, “After adopting a resolution in 1989 to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya, the temple town has always been close to us. For us, Lord Rama and Ram temple have been a matter of faith. They will continue to remain important for us. We have never seen it from the electoral point of view.”

    Several BJP leaders are likely to visit Ayodhya. Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, hoping to repeat its 2007 success of by harnessing its ‘Dalits-Brahmins’ formula, began its ‘Brahmin Sammelan’ from Ayodhya on July 23.

    The 2022 polls are the first in the state since the Supreme Court on November 9, 2019 ruled in favour of the construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site and directed the Centre to allot an alternative five-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a new mosque.

    The Babri mosque in Ayodhya was demolished on December 6, 1992 by ‘karsevaks’, who claimed that an ancient Ram temple stood at the same site. On July 23, Rajya Sabha MP and BSP supremo Mayawati’s close aide Satish Chandra Misra started the party’s campaign to woo Brahmin voters by offering prayers at the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya.

    Attacking the BJP, Mishra asked the ruling party to give account of the donations collected by it in the name of the Ram temple in the past three decades.

    Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav, whose father Mulayam Singh Yadav is often criticised by his opponents for ordering police firing on the Karsewaks after razing of the 16th century Babri mosque, has been attacking the saffron party for “playing the Ayodhya card in every elections”.

    “We are no less a devout Hindu. Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) in fact has been a disciple of Lord Hanuman since his early days,” Akhilesh Yadav said recently at a TV programme hosted in Lucknow. He has also said he would visit the temple with his family after its opens for public.

    His party too used Ayodhya to launch its campaign with state unit chief Naresh Uttam participating in a function of the party — ‘khet bachaao, rozgaar bachaao’ — on September 3.

    Asked as to how much importance does the party give to Ayodhya, SP spokesperson Juhie Singh said, “It is important for us, and it was a major halt of the yatra undertaken by party’s UP unit chief Naresh Uttam. In 2012, the SP had won Ayodhya Assembly constituency.”

    “When the SP was in power, the biggest package of development was given to Ayodhya, whether it was the 16-kosi parikrama, plantation of trees in accordance with the Ramayan, the setting up of a museum or the beautification of ghats and various pilgrimage sites. The Purvanchal Expressway was realligned was the SP’s regime, so that it covers Ayodhya,” she said.

    AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi began his party’s campaign with a public meeting at Rasulabad in Ayodhya on September 7. The venue was strategically chosen as it is near Dhannipur where a mosque is coming up as per the apex court judgement.

    The Congress, however, did not seem to be endorsing political parties using Ayodhya as a launch venue for the campaigns. “For the Congress, Ayodhya, Mathura, Kashi, Mahadeva and Deva Sharif (in Barabanki district) are the same. The party has already announced plans to take out a 12,000 km-long yatra through villages and towns of Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Assembly polls next year,” UP Congress spokesperson Abbas Haider said.

    The decision to take out the “Congress Pratigya Yatra: Hum Vachan Nibhayenge” was taken at a meeting AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra held with the party’s advisory and strategy committee here, the party said in a statement.

  • Samajwadi Party launches ‘Jan Mann-Vijay’ campaign for Uttar Pradesh assembly polls

    By PTI

    LUCKNOW: The Samajwadi Party (SP) on Saturday announced its ‘Jan Mann-Vijay’ campaign for the next year Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, on a day the BJP launched its ‘Vijay Booth Abhiyan’ for the elections.

    SP chief Akhilesh Yadav also said that the party through its ‘Har Booth Par Youth’ programme will reach out to the people of the state and ensure the success of the campaign.

    “In the 2022 election, the youth power of the SP will create public awareness at every booth of Uttar Pradesh and on the basis of the works and principles of the SP, the party will win the hearts of all the people and ensure the success of the ‘Jan-Mann Vijay Abhiyan’ at the booth level,” he said in a tweet in Hindi.

    The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister announced the ‘Jan Mann-Vijay Abhiyan’ and the ‘Har Booth Par Youth’ programme on the micro-blogging site.

    “The awakened people of Uttar Pradesh will bring a democratic revolution,” Yadav said.

    Earlier on Saturday, BJP president J P Nadda launched his party’s ‘Vijay Booth Abhiyan’ online for 27,700 ‘Shakti Kendras’ (organisational units) in Uttar Pradesh.

  • Samajwadi Party MP Azam Khan discharged from hospital, taken back to Sitapur jail

    By PTI

    LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party MP Azam Khan, who was undergoing treatment at a private hospital here, was on Friday discharged and sent back to Sitapur jail, officials said.

    Khan, 72, was admitted to Medanta hospital on July 19 due to post-Covid syndrome, including difficulty in breathing and weakness, an official statement of the hospital said.

    After improvement in his health, he was discharged from the hospital at about 1.30 pm, it added.

    Khan, the SP MP from Rampur, was sent back to Sitapur jail, where he was lodged after a number of cases including that of land grabbing were filed against him.

    The hospital said Khan has also given a Sputnik COVID-19 vaccine dose a week ago.

    Khan had tested positive for COVID-19 in May this year while being in jail.

  • Six SP leaders, 150 others booked for holding meeting, taking out procession: UP Police

    SHO Subhash Chandra Yadav of Sikandarpur police station identified the arrested SP leaders as Sheikh Ahmad Ali, Sanjay, Suabul, Islam and Ravi Yadav.

  • Religion over democracy? Calls for Hanuman Chalisa, Namaz rooms pop up in Bihar, UP Assemblies

    By ANI

    PATNA: Amid the row over the allocation of a separate room for offering Namaz inside Jharkhand Assembly premises, a BJP MLA from Bihar’s Darbhanga district on Tuesday demanded space in the Bihar Assembly to recite the ‘Hanuman Chalisa’.

    Speaking to the media, Hari Bhushan Thakur, BJP MLA from Bisfi constituency in Darbhanga district said everyone is equal before the Constitution and if a Namaz room is being allocated in Jharkhand, then there should be room to recite the ‘Hanuman Chalisa’ in Bihar as well.

    “If a room is allocated (in Jharkhand Assembly) to offer Namaz in the secular country, why shouldn’t there be room to chant ‘Hanuman Chalisa’? All sections of society are equal before the Constitution,” said Thakur.

    The BJP MLA added that he will meet the Bihar Assembly speaker soon in this regard.

    The Jharkhand Assembly witnessed uproarious scenes over the issue of allotment of space for Namaz in assembly premises during the last two days of the monsoon session.

    In an order issued on September 2, the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly Secretariat stated that room number TW 348, in the new Assembly building of Jharkhand, has been allotted to offer the Namaz. 

    Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party MLA Irfan Solanki on Tuesday demanded a similar prayer room for Muslims in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly building and urged the Speaker to consider it.

    However, UP Legislative Assembly Speaker Hriday Narayan Dixit, when contacted, told PTI that he had not received any communication from the MLA in this regard and a decision on any such demand will be taken as per law.

    Solanki, a member of the legislative assembly from the Sisamau constituency in Kanpur, said, “I am an MLA for the past 15 years.

    Many times when assembly proceedings are going on, we Muslim MLAs have to leave the assembly to offer namaz.

    “If there is a small prayer room in the Assembly we won’t have to leave proceedings. On many occasions if you have a question in the pipeline and it is the time for ”azaan” (prayer call), you can either ask the question or offer namaz,” he said.

    “Even at international airports, there is a room for ‘ibadat’ (prayer). The Assembly Speaker can consider this and its will not cause any loss to anyone,” Solanki said.

    The MLA, however, told PTI that he has not given any request in writing to the Speaker in this regard.

    When asked about it, Speaker Dixit said, “He (Irfan Solanki) has not given me any letter in this regard, nor any discussion was held in this regard.”

    Asked whether a room for namaz will be set up if Solanki submits a request, Dixit said, “Discussions will be held with officials in this regard, and a decision as per law will be taken.”

    Solanki’s demand came amid a controversy over the allotment of a room for offering namaz in the Jharkhand Assembly building by the Speaker, with the BJP protesting against the move.

    The ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and Congress have welcomed it.

    A notification dated September 2 and signed by Jharkhand Legislative Assembly Deputy Secretary Naveen Kumar by order of the Speaker said, “Allotment of room number TW 348 as Namaz Hall for offering Namaz in the new Assembly Building.” The opposition BJP created a ruckus over the issue, disrupting proceedings for the second day in the Jharkhand Assembly.

    The party is demanding that the order be recalled or else a Hanuman temple and places of worship of other religions also be allowed on the assembly premises.

    The government must immediately revoke the “unconstitutional and undemocratic decision” on the namaz room, the saffron party has said.

    (With PTI Inputs)

  • UP polls: Shah faces challenge of halting OBC drift as SP woos Brahmins

    Express News Service

    NEW DELHI: Set to take charge of BJP’s bid to defend political turf in Uttar Pradesh, Amit Shah faces an immediate task of arresting the drift of non-Yadav Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

    While the BJP leadership continues to watch caste churning in UP ahead of Assembly elections early next year, there’s a growing concern within the party that the smaller castes which helped them beat Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samajwadi Party in the elections since 2014 could be moving away.

    Party leaders believe that BJP may have to aggressively woo the likes of Patels, Nishads, Mauryas, Rajbhars and others to boost its prospects.

    Shah has a task on hand, with the smaller political parties specifically catering to the political aspirations of such castes asserting their strength in the run-up to the polls.

    Success of their counterparts in Bihar last year, most significantly of the Vikassheel Insan Party led by Mukesh Sahini, has seemingly emboldened their bargaining positions. 

    Shah is credited within the BJP for crafting a grand social engineering of the non-Yadav OBCs along with the upper castes to scale up the electoral base of the party in the state known for identity politics since 1990s.

    “After Shah was appointed the BJP in-charge for UP in 2013, he had set out to work on the numerical strength of the non-Yadav OBCs to beat the social engineering of the BSP and SP. But some of such smaller castes numbering up to 10,000-20,000 in each assembly constituency in UP are nursing grievances against BJP, which has to be addressed by the party urgently,” said a senior BJP functionary, who added that the party will need to do more than making Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal a minister in the Central government.

    The BJP’s challenge is also likely to be more onerous in the face of the willingness of SP to be more accommodative to parties which represent specific caste groups.

    With the likelihood of alliances against BJP, it may have to field a large number of candidates from the non-Yadav OBC space to promote alternative leadership.

    As political parties compete to woo Brahmins through outreach programmes ahead of the 2022 assembly polls, supporters of the Samajwadi Party have gone a step further.

    In Ballia on Monday, they held a “Shiv Sevak Sammelan” aimed at a section among the Brahmins — the influential Goswami community.

    The event was held under the banner of the “Goswami Samaj” at the local Town Hall, where Arvind Giri, the state president of Samajwadi Party Yuvjan Sabha, accused the BJP government of “neglect and oppression” of the community.

    He said similar conventions will be held all over the state to unite the Goswamis in favour of the SP ahead of the assembly elections early next year.

    On posters put up at the convention site, Lord Shiva shared space with SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and party president Akhilesh Yadav.

    Former minister Narad Rai attended the meeting.

    Giri said there are about 10 sub-castes among the Goswamis and efforts will be made to unite them through these events.

    He claimed that the Goswamis have a significant population in nearly 15 districts where they could influence the election outcome.

    Later, UP minister Anand Swaroop Shukla lashed out at the SP, saying it is out to divide the Hindu `samaj’ in the name of caste through such conventions.

    “Why does the Samajwadi Party not organise separate sammelans of Shias and Sunnis among of the Muslims,” he said.

    He also asked if any top SP leader has been seen offering ‘jalabhishek’ at Kashi Vishwanath, Baijnath or Pashupatinath temples.

    The minister claimed that the entire Hindu samaj is united in support of the BJP and nobody will succeed in dividing it in the name of caste.

    The BJP recently launched its “prabuddh varg” (intellectual community) “sammelans”, widely seen as events to reach out to the Brahmin community.

    Mayawati’s Dalit-centric Bahujan Samaj Party too has begun a similar exercise.

    (With PTI Inputs)

  • Will ally only with small parties for Uttar Pradesh polls: Congress rules out tie-ups with SP, BSP

    Express News Service

    LUCKNOW: Congress has joined the group of political players who want to seek an alliance only with smaller parties as part of their strategy ahead of the 2022 Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.

    Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Ajay Kumar Lallu expressed the desire on Sunday to tie up with only smaller regional parties for the upcoming assembly elections.

    “The issue of joining hands with bigger players in Uttar Pradesh (UP) ahead of assembly polls is out of question for us,” Ajay Kumar Lallu while talking to media persons.

    However, the UP Congress chief expressed confidence that his party was set to make an impressive comeback after three decades of hiatus in UP politics.

    He substantiated his claim by saying that all the respective governments including that of SP, BSP and BJP had failed to live up to people’s expectations.

    Congress had its last government in undivided UP in 1989 with late ND Tiwari as their Chief Minister.

    However, the UPCC chief chose not to divulge the party strategy to make a comeback.

    Calling the Congress the “main challenger” to the BJP when Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls early next year, Lallu said his party was confident of forming the government in the state after contesting the elections under the leadership of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

    “We are moving forward as a strong opposition force and under the leadership of Priyanka ji, we will win the polls, and form the government in 2022,” said Lallu.

    Even the BSP and the SP have so far ruled out any alliance with Congress. While SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has already expressed his party’s choice of stitching an alliance with smaller parties, BSP supremo Mayawati has made it clear that her party would contest on its own in 2022.

    Earlier in the day, Lallu extended his support for the farmers protesting against the Centre’s contentious agricultural laws as they gathered at Muzaffarnagar in the state for the Kisan Mahapanchayat called by the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha.

    In the 2017 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, the Congress managed to bag only seven seats while its ally SP secured 47 seats; the BSP won 19 seats.

    The BJP, meanwhile, won the elections with a thumping majority by clinching 312 of 403 seats legislative assembly to form the government.

  • SP should never allow the mafia to enter the party: Shivpal Yadav

    By PTI

    SAMBHAL: Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) founder Shivpal Yadav said members of the mafia should not be taken into the Samajwadi Party and claimed that when he was president of the Akhilesh Yadav-led outfit, such people were never allowed entry.

    Shivpal Yadav had quit the SP after differences with his nephew Akhilesh Yadav and formed his own party.

    “The mafia never came to the Samajwadi Party (SP). Mafias should not be taken. I had also not taken any. I was the state president (of the SP) and no mafia came to us. We never took Mukhtar Ansari,” Shivpal Yadav told reporters here on Wednesday evening.

    He was asked about don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s brother Sigbatullah Ansari joining the SP recently.

    “I took Sigbatullah Ansari and Afzal Ansari in the SP but later had to leave the SP,” he said in an reference to Akhilesh Yadav, who was against their joining the party in 2016.

    The BJP has attacked Akhilesh Yadav for taking Mukhtar Ansari’s brother into his party, saying that the SP cannot run without the help of mafias.

    Asked whether he would return to the SP, Shivpal Yadav said, “If I get due honour, I would consider returning to the Samajwadi family.”

    He alleged that corruption has increased five times in the state under the present BJP regime.

  • Samajwadi Party should join united front to dislodge BJP: PSP-Lohia chief Shivpal Yadav

    By PTI

    SAMBHAL: Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia president Shivpal Singh Yadav on Wednesday said all like-minded parties should unite to dislodge the BJP from power and their effort is that the Samajwadi Party (SP) also join the front.

    The former UP minister, who had quit the Samajwadi Party after differences with his nephew Akhilesh Yadav and formed his own outfit, also alleged that the bureaucracy is working in an arbitrary manner.

    He also accused the state’s BJP government of failing to check crime. Yadav told reporters here that his outfit has readied itself for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls next year, for which all like-minded parties should unite to dislodge the BJP from power. “Our effort is that the Samajwadi Party should also be part of this (united front) so that we are successful in removing the BJP from power,” he said.

    Attacking CM Yogi Adityanath over law and order, Yadav said incidents of murder, dacoity and rape have become common. “The government of Yogi Adityanath has failed on all fronts,” he said, adding that bureaucracy too is working in an arbitrary manner.

    He also criticised the Centre’s farm laws, saying these have ruined farmers.