In an apparent attack on the BJP’s ‘saffron’ politics, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday said those who had just ‘one colour’ could not add colour to anyone’s life.
Pointing to the “rainbow of red, blue, green and yellow” coloured flags and banners visible at a rally in Ghazipur, from where he started a joint rath yatra to Lucknow with his allies, Mr. Yadav said: “We Samajwadi people take along all colours. These people of ek rang [one colour], these ‘chillum jeevi’ cannot take Uttar Pradesh on the path of happiness.” Chillum is a small pipe used to smoke substances such as tobacco, marijuana and others and Mr. Yadav usually refers to it to mock his main opponent and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who is also a priest.
Mr. Yadav’s rally on the Ghazipur-Lucknow route came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the 341-km Purvanchal Expressway in Sultanpur, which links the State capital to Ghazipur on the eastern fringes where the BJP’s caste coalition is facing a strong challenge from the SP this time.
Standing atop a specially-designed bus, Mr. Yadav was accompanied by two of his allies in Purvanchal — Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar and Janvadi Party (Socialist) president Sanjay Chauhan. Mr. Rajbhar and Mr. Chauhan are both OBC leaders and key to the SP’s outreach among the numerically dominant backward castes. In recent elections, the BJP has managed to polarise the narrative among the non-Yadav backward castes against the Yadavs, also an OBC community, who form the core support base of the SP.
In the 2017 Assembly elections, Mr. Rajbhar allied with the BJP, helping it sweep parts of east Uttar Pradesh while his party managed to win four of the eight seats it contested. Now an ally of Mr. Yadav, Mr. Rajbhar said he had “shut the BJP door [of power].”
“It will not open again,” he told the crowd, asking them to repeat the slogan, “ Jab tak BJP ki vidai nahi, tab tak koi dhilai nahi [‘till the BJP Government is not dismissed, there must be no complacency’].”
Targets Modi, Shah
Mr. Rajbhar also targetted the background of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, saying “Gujarati people have made Uttar Pradesh paidal [made pedestrian].”
Mr. Yadav said the BJP had betrayed the emotions of people and stated that he was witnessing a “wave of change” from the Ghazipur border in east Uttar Pradesh to Ghazipur in west. The BJP would get wiped out in 2022, he claimed.
