In a counter to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Dalit card, Akhilesh Yadav is now banking on Brahmins. On the occasion of the birth anniversary of Samajwadi Party’s (SP) founding member Janeshwar Mishra, he organised a conference in Lucknow, where most of the Brahmin leaders of the Samajwadi Party were invited. Setting his eyes on Uttar Pradesh’s Brahmins, who account for around 9-11% of the state’s population, Akhilesh now claims that the ‘P’ in his PDA ( Picchda, Dalit, Adivasi) bloc stands for ‘Pandit’.
During the meeting, Akhilesh said that Brahmins were being oppressed in Uttar Pradesh, and that his party respects every caste.
Five years later, that map was unrecognisable. The SP was reduced to three, the BSP to five, and the Congress was shut out entirely. the Samajwadi Party cannot name anybody other than Akhilesh Yadav as its chief ministerial face While the Brahmin community wants power. In the BJP government, the community is represented by a Deputy Chief Minister post. So, switching would make little sense. So, for a Brahmin candidate, the probability of winning on a BJP ticket is higher.
The Samajwadi Party is banking on tensions between Brahmins and Rajputs, the ‘Thakurvad’ allegations under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and discontent due to University Grants Commission (UGC) norms and the NEET paper leak, to tap the crucial Brahmin vote. In 2012, these 97 ‘Brahmin-influenced’ seats were effectively Samajwadi Party territory. The party won 55 of them – more than half. The BSP took 19, the BJP managed a modest 12, and the Congress held on to seven. In 2017, the BJP swept 87 of the same 97 seats – a sevenfold jump. The 2022 election saw a slight correction: the BJP’s tally eased to 72, while the SP recovered to 21, but the broader picture held. The BJP remains the dominant force in seats where Brahmins carry weight, by a margin no other party has come close to challenging since 2017. For the opposition – a Samajwadi Party that recovered some ground in Brahmin-influenced seats in 2022, or a Congress that has been shut out entirely since 2012 – winning back even a fraction of this vote in Central and Eastern Uttar Pradesh could matter far more than the community’s raw population numbers would suggest. Even in terms of ticket distribution, in 2022, the SP gave tickets to 39 Brahmins, the BJP to 68, and the BSP to 70.
