With the 2014 general elections drawing to a close, the Samajwadi Party is gearing up to launch its series of rallies and has decided to take out a ‘samajaik nyaya yatra’ (social justice march) from October 25.
The yatra will be flagged off from the party’s headquarters in Lucknow by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. It has already been announced that the ruling party will reach out to 18 places in the state and address public meetings, beginning October 25.
The march will be led by the party’s OBC leaders and is aimed at winning over the backward classes that have apparently got disenchanted with the ruling party after the state government annulled the UP Public Service Commission’s new reservation policy which guaranteed more reservations for the OBCs in government jobs.
The SP, which had initially decided to woo the upper castes by organising Brahmin and Rajput conferences, seems to have given up hopes of winning them over and is back to its ideological roots of focusing on the OBCs.
The ‘Jan Adhikar Manch’ formed by Khushwaha has been working assiduously to woo the backward castes and has now merged with the Samajwadi Party. The SP feels that with the ‘Kushwaha factor’ and the ‘social justice movement’, the party will be back in action as far as consolidating the backward classes ahead of the 2014 elections is concerned. The ruling party is also considering the re-induction of former minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh into the ministry, to send a positive message to the Rajput community.