AKHILESH’s PDA: The challenge before Akhilesh Yadav for the Lok Sabha election was to take the Samajwadi Party (SP) base beyond just the Muslim-Yadav (MY) combination that Mulayam Singh built. This social engineering was intended to blunt the BJP’s criticism of the SP as a Yadav-Muslim party, and one that is controlled only by the family of Mulayam Singh. TEJASHWI’S BAAP: Like Mayawati’s base in UP, Nitish Kumar’s support among certain OBCs in Bihar is up for grabs. The attempts to consolidate backward-caste votes in UP and Bihar go back further than Mandal and leaders like Mulayam and Lalu. AdvertisementKanshi Ram later identified his social base as Bahujan, formed the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), and vehemently attacked the upper castes.

Source: Indian Express June 01, 2024 12:05 UTC