In a strategic move, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav has resigned as a Member of Parliament after being elected MLA in the recent Uttar Pradesh election aiming at consolidating his party’s position in his home state ahead of the 2024 national election and even 2027 state polls.
Another senior Samajwadi Party leader, Azam Khan, has also quit as an MP. Though Samajwadi Party, which emerged as the key challenger to the BJP in the recently concluded elections, remained a distant second with 111 seats as against 255 of the BJP and 273 of NDA, Yadav improved his party’s tally by nearly three times against the 47 the SP had won in 2017. UP has 403 State Assembly seats.
Not only this, the Samajwadi Party clocked a vote share of 32.6%. It is clear Yadav’s full-time focus is strengthening his party from this platform and remaining at the forefront of the action in Uttar Pradesh. This is why, say sources, Akhilesh is not worried that the SP’s number in the Parliament has reduced to three with these resignations.
Yadav was an MP from eastern UP’s Azamgarh. He contested the state election for the first time in the March-April polls, from family stronghold Karhal in the Mainpuri district and won. Sources say the former Chief Minister intends to take on the BJP as opposition leader in the UP assembly, with an eye also on the 2027 polls.
Political analysts say a big factor behind Akhilesh’s move is also the decline of Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which won just one seat. He could well explore that space and try to cast his party’s net wider than the conventional Muslim-Yadav (MY) combination. Yadav also realises that his proactive presence is necessary to ensure that the traditional vote base doesn’t slip away, as it did in the case of Mayawati who had begun to nurture political ambitions much earlier than her time.
