Samajwadi Party now trying to get rid of pro-muslim image

LUCKNOW: Known to have Muslims as its core vote bank, the Samajwadi Party is now actively posturing to associate itself with the Hindu religion and rid of the perception of working only for the Muslim community, ahead of the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. The party has come under fire multiple times in the last few years from BJP leaders for having allegedly led attacks on the kar sewaks in Ayodhya, signalling the party to be "anti-Hindus".
On a trip to Chitrakoot last week, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav visited the Kamdhenu temple, did a circumambulation of the Kamadgiri and met saints and sought their blessings. Addressing a press conference, Yadav announced that if elected to power, the party’s government would beautify Chitrakoot, develop the Lakshman Pahadi on an international level and give pension to artists involved in Ramlila, without any discrimination on the basis of religion or caste.

Last month, Yadav had visited Ayodhya on his way back from Azamgarh to Lucknow, and said he would go there again with his family. "Lord Ram belongs to the SP as much as anyone else," Yadav had said, while adding that he was both a Ram bhakt and a Krishna bhakt.

While political experts and SP insiders claim Yadav and the family to be deeply religious, they say it was the BJP's claim to be a friend of Hindus and its effort to paint all other parties as anti-Hindu which had prompted the party to prove its Hindu credentials.

Meanwhile, the BJP in UP is using the opportunity to slam Yadav for a "volte face".

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath, without taking names, said those who had considered Ram to be "fictional" and called to open fire at Ram bhakts were now saying Ram belonged to everyone. Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya said one must not be surprised if even (AIMIM’s Asaddudin) Owaisi also visited the Ram temple. He said when the BJP was not in power at the Centre and the state, Yadav and Rahul Gandhi did not dare go to a temple thinking their vote share would fall. Today, they are going to temples thinking their votes will rise, he said.

A senior SP leader said even though 80% of the party’s members were Hindus, the way the BJP had heightened its pitch of Ram mandir, religion and nationalism, the party had felt compelled to toe the line and respond in a similar language and Yadav had now been compelled to "broadcast" his faith.

A senior political watcher said SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav was known to be a frequent temple goer and while it was not the first time that the leaders were visiting temples, now they were going with an objective, so as to "prove their Hindu credentials", like most parties, be it the Congress or the Aam Aadmi Party that have been compelled to do it in the past.