Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party Announces New Uttar Pradesh State Executive Unit Ahead of 2024 LS Polls – News18

The Samajwadi Party (SP), led by Akhilesh Yadav, has announced the formation of its new Uttar Pradesh state executive unit to make the party ready for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Chief spokesperson Rajendra Chowdhury said senior SP member Mohammed Azam Khan’s son Abdullah Azam Khan has been made the party’s state secretary, with Irfanul Haq, CL Verma, Shyampal Bind and BS Bind as vice-presidents and Rajkular Mishra as the treasurer. There will be 61 secretaries, 48 members and 62 special invitee members, Chowdhury said. He said the 182-member state executive was announced after Yadav’s approval.

The recent development is an attempt to boost the party following the Lok Sabha bypoll losses in Rampur and Azamgarh – both SP strongholds. Yadav had dissolved the state executive unit, barring its state president Naresh Uttam Patel, after the 2022 assembly elections.

However, party insiders called Yadav’s new team an attempt to woo the Other Backward Case (OBC) and Schedule Caste (SC) voters. Besides, they called it an attempt to tackle a fresh poll tactic of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is on a spree to woo OBC and SC voters.

The new team has 30 members from the non-Yadav OBC and 10 from the SC communities. Insiders said the members belonging to Yadav’s uncle Shivpal’s group are upset as only five from their group have got a place in the new team. Shivpal’s son Aditya, too, did not get a place. He was not part of the SP’s national team too.

Besides, Yadav’s new team of 182 members also includes 12 members from the Muslim community, 5 five from the Thakur and two from the Brahmin communities.