Non-Yadav OBCs dominate new SP state executive panel

LUCKNOW : The Samajwadi Party reconstituted its state executive committee on Tuesday. In a shift from its traditional Yadav-Muslim domination, 40 per cent members of the new committee are non-Yadav OBCs (other backward classes) with good representation of Brahmins and Dalits.

The state executive had been in suspended animation for the last five years after party president Akhilesh Yadav dissolved the previous executive committee after the 2017 UP assembly elections debacle.

The state unit had the state president in the form of Naresh Uttam Patel (a non-Yadav OBC) and Akhilesh named him the party’s state unit president again.

The 72-member committee has over 40% OBCs, 10 Brahmins, 11 Muslims, more than six Dalits (including three former Bahujan Samaj Party leaders), five women and within this there is a balanced representation of all the regions of the state. The committee has only seven Yadavs.

The non-Yadav OBCs in the committee include members from Nishad, Kashyap, Kurmi, Bind, Pal, Maurya, Kushwaha, Prajapati, Saini, Sahu, and Gurjar communities. “The committee has a representation of all communities”, said Samajwadi Party state spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary.

The committee indicates the party’s shift for the 2022 electoral battle keeping in sync with all the rival parties’ attempts to please all communities other than their traditional vote banks.

“This also indicates that the party’s ticket distribution for the 2022 polls too would follow a similar pattern as that of the executive committee,” said a senior SP MLA. The party is likely to start announcing lists of candidates from next month onwards.

A political analyst and former head of the department of political science, Lucknow University said: “Quite a logical strategy. The party knows that its traditional vote bank Yadavs and Muslims would, by and large, stay with it. And such measures are needed to attract other communities. All parties are racing to attract all communities.”