Besides promising a ban on all political messaging that use the armed forces, to proposing the raising of an Ahir armoured regiment and a Gujarat infantry regiment, the Samajwadi Party's (SP) vision document for the coming Lok Sabha election takes a dig at the BJP's 'nationalism' narrative.
Releasing the document in Lucknow on Friday, party chief Akhilesh Yadav also pushed the message of "mahaparivartan with social justice”, to pitch the idea of change through uplift of OBCs and Dalits.
Targeting the BJP for referring to the armed forces in its election campaign, the SP document stated: "increasingly desperate BJP is using the Indian armed forces as an electoral tool, accusing all and sundry of anti-national.This pseudo-nationalism threatens our national security more than any either external force."
The party proposed a State-specific family welfare programme to look after the family of troops while they are away at work.
The mainstay of the document was an emphasis on social justice and economics of social justice through social mobility, housing and income to address inequality.
"A war on poverty is a sham unless it is also a war on caste and gender," Mr. Yadav quoted Ram Manohar Lohia to illustrate the party's vision.
If voted to power, the SP-BSP-RLD alliance will demand "that central reservation are immediately updated to reflect actual caste distribution in the population”.
At a press conference, Mr. Yadav said the path to progress and prosperity "cannot come about without social justice," as he demanded that the caste-wise census be made public in the country.
The SP document also criticized the Modi government's Swachh Bharat programme, saying it "instituted a systematic abuse of Dalits and lower-castes to clean the country — symbolic gestures like washing their feet makes the problem worse, not better."
In a message aimed at mobilizing Dalits and OBCs, it said: "A cleaner India for rich, upper caste people cannot be built by lower-caste Indians - this goes against the principle of social justice."
It also referred to women's security and cow lynching.
The document presented the SP-BSP-RLD alliance as being the voice of the "most oppressed sections of society”.
"The privileged dismiss us as casteist. The elite and rich dismiss us as power-hungry. These are all lies designed to maintain and perpetuate oppressive power structures that benefit the few," it read.
