Jubilee Post News & Views
Vivek Awasthi
Compared the election 2017 and 2022 and you will find a difference within Samajwadi Party and the BJP, the two parties that are hogging limelight at present.
Samajwadi Party while the 2017 assembly elections were round the corner was neck deep in infighting and busy solving issues that erupted from within the party. The then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Yadav were two points within the party. And the matter went so far that uncle formed a separate party Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party.
The BJP on the other hand was working with the Modi wave and right from IT war rooms to use of all technology and tactics was there with the BJP. The Samajwadi Party too had a war room and IT experts but the last 6-months of governance were gone in infighting. If we consider the voting in 2017 Samajwadi Party got 47 seats and a 21.8%vote share in the assembly polls. BJP had won 312 seats with a vote share of 39.7%, which means it got more votes on the winning seats.
Cut to 2022. Two BJP ministers have left the ruling BJP government and Akhilesh has posted their pictures, welcoming them. Though none have announced their joining with SP yet Akhilesh seems understanding the equations.
The former chief minister has been travelling across state for the past six months, unlike 2017 when he spent last six-months before elections in Lucknow mostly. What does it signifies? At least this is clear that Akhilesh is more flexible to travel, free to meet and has people joining him instead of leaving his party or engaging him in infighting. Even uncle Shivpaal has been cordial in talks with him and have posted pictures on social media with a ‘smile.’
It is obvious that Samajwadi Party has not been vocal as in the past and is away from media platforms, unlike past. This could well be understood. But the work which is being done is nevertheless more than the previous years.
A big question but remains. Whether crowd turns in to votes this time? If crowd has to do anything then a state level push of vote percentage by 5 or 10 per cent can do change on the leader board.
