LUCKNOW: Accompanied by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, party leaders Swami Prasad Maurya, Mukul Yadav, Jasmir Ansari and Shahnawaz Khan filed their nomination papers on Thursday for the June 20 UP legislative council elections. The choice of candidates suggests that the party has not only focused on the backwards but also on its MY (Muslim-Yadav) vote bank at the same time.
Maurya, who was a minister in the Yogi government when he joined SP months before the 2022 assembly polls, is a powerful backward leader and is likely to be named as the leader of the opposition (LoP) in the Council once his election is formally through. With party chief Akhilesh Yadav as leader of the opposition in the assembly, Maurya – a lawyer by profession – leading the opposition in the Council will add to the SP’s image as a strong opposition, feel party strategists.
Mukul Yadav is the son of former Karhal MLA Shobharan Yadav who had stepped aside in the last assembly polls for Akhilesh Yadav and the latter had promised to ‘aptly’ reciprocate the gesture. Being a Yadav, Mukul also hails from the backward class category. So is Jasmir Ansari whose community is entitled for reservation in some states (not in UP) under the OBC quota. The SP has also fielded Shahnawaz Khan, son of Azam’s close aide. It was no surprise then that Azam Khan’s son and sitting SP MLA from Swar Tanda, Abdullah Azam, also accompanied Akhilesh in his car to join the four candidates who filed their nominations on Wednesday.
“The SP leadership has undoubtedly tried to focus on backwards and Muslims in all three recent elections. Be it the Rajya Sabha polls, Azamgarh and Rampur bypolls or the council polls, Muslims have got a more than noticeable representation. The community should not feel neglected anymore,” said a political analyst. Of the 9 individuals that the party has backed in the three elections, four happen to be Muslims and three Yadavs. The remaining two include Kapil Sibal and RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary, whom the party has backed as independent and RLD candidate respectively.
