The challenges before Akhilesh Yadav

Positioned as the main challenger to the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav plans to fight the 2022 Assembly election with the support of smaller Other Backward Classes -based parties without forming a ‘grand alliance’. A strong social alliance needed But to challenge the BJP’s seemingly insurmountable vote share of over 40%, Mr. Yadav has to build a broader social alliance. Successive setbacks have forced Mr. Yadav to embrace his backward roots without the need to complement it with his ‘forward’ work. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen leader Asaduddin Owaisi’s attempts at dismantling the ‘M-Y’ equation might not succeed, but may compel Mr. Yadav to address the Muslim question, which the BJP would prefer. In its campaign, the BJP has tried to reignite memories of the firing on ‘karsevaks’ in 1990 under the rule of Mr. Yadav’s father, Mulayam Singh; and recall the string of communal incidents, controversies over attempts to withdraw cases against Muslim terror-accused persons, the ‘goondaism’, and favouring of Yadavs in recruitment under Mr. Yadav in his first tenure.