Rahul Gandhi & Akhilesh Yadav (Image credit X @ClassicMojito)
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, February 24: Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav finally joined the Bharat Jodo Nayay yatra of the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday. Yadav left for Agra on Sunday morning to join Gandhi in the last leg of the yatra in Uttar Pradesh.
The joining of the yatra of the Congress by Yadav revives the old slogan of the 2017 state Assembly elections of “UP ke Bhaiya”. It may be noted that the Congress and the Samajwadi Party had pitched Gandhi and Yadav as the ‘UP ke Bhaiya’ as a poll template. But the combined might of the Congress and the Samajwadi Party was defeated in the state as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came out victorious in the Assembly elections.
Yadav joined the Bharat Jodo Nayay Yatra after holding the Congress on the tenterhooks on the seat adjustment pact between the two parties. Finally, the media reports said that the Congress national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra intervened to find truce. The Congress will contest a total of 17 Lok Sabha seats in UP.
The Congress has also struck seat adjustment with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The Congress will be contesting three Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. The Congress has agreed to give two Lok Sabha seats in Gujarat to the AAP. By inking the seat adjustment pact with the AAP, the Congress is seen to have ensured that the Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit will not be eating into the vote base of the party. It may be noted that the Congress in the recent elections had been at the receiving ends of the AAP splitting the anti-BJP vote base.
But the Congress still faces the challenge of not being able to unite the Opposition parties in UP. The Bahujan Samaj Party has said that it will contest the Lok Sabha elections on its own. This is seen as a defeat of the strategy of the Opposition to force a one-on-one contest against the ruling BJP at the Centre.
The Congress has been able to finalise the seat adjustment with the AAP and the SP. The Congress is also likely to finalize seat adjustments in Bihar. But the party is still struggling to finalize seat adjustments with the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.
Gandhi is leading the campaign for caste census in the country. Yadav is also holding a state wide yatra to reach out to the minorities, Dalits, and extremely backward castes to build a formidable base against the BJP.
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