With “cadre strengthening” and “booth management” among its top priorities, the Samajwadi Party (SP) has eventually launched its ‘Mission 2024’ with the aim to win all 80 Lok Sabha Seats of Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 general elections. As part of the campaign, the SP not only organised a two-day party cadre training camp at Naimisharanya in Sitapur district but also gave a fresh slogan–”Assi haraao, BJP hatao (defeat BJP on all 80 UP Lok Sabha seats and oust it)”. Its national general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav said, “This training camp will mark the beginning of the destruction of the BJP which is ‘asur (demon)’.”
The functioning of the camp makes it a special one, say SP leaders. “Unlike previous instances, when the party’s focus was either on making big promises or highlighting the development work that the previous SP government carried out, it’s for the first time when the entire focus is on strengthening the cadre, especially at the booth level,” a senior party leader told News 18.
The party has shortlisted under-40 representatives who would be imparted special training to connect the youths with the SP. As per the party’s roadmap for the 2024 Lok Sabha Polls, at least 10 new cadres are to be roped in at each booth to make the SP’s presence more visible at the ground level, another leader said. That is why, the party is organising a similar exercise on all 80 Lok Sabha seats of UP.
According to sources, the party cadre is also being trained to create awareness among the people and to make them aware of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and BJP’s ideology, and how the two have played “divide and rule” on the basis of Hindutva and religion. Once done with the training, the workers would move to sector and booth levels, especially in the rural pockets of UP to increase the party’s base.
The SP is also eyeing Dalit voters and is establishing a separate wing, Ambedkar Vahini Samajwadi, to woo the community. “Ambedkar Vahini Samajwadi youths would focus on unity, social justice, and caste census, which they said is a key to development,” a party leader said.
Senior SP leader Kiranmoy Nanda was the first to point out the need for strengthening the party cadre in order to defeat the ruling BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
On the party’s changed strategy, UP’s political analysts say “der aaye durust aaye (better late than never)”. “The strategy is not new. The only thing is that the SP, under the leadership of Akhilesh Yadav, has opted for it now. The party was in dire need of strengthening its cadre, which is not the case with the BJP which is very strong with its analyses and post-election exercises that help it perform better. Interestingly, SP patron and its founder Mulayam Singh Yadav too believed in having a strong party cadre and now Akhilesh too is following this. I am sure this will be of great advantage to the SP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls,” said Shashikant Pandey, head of the political science department at Bhimrao Ambedkar University in Lucknow.
The SP’s move came after the Bharatiya Janata Party recently launched its Tiffin Pe Charcha or Khane Pe Charcha programme to mark nine years of the Narendra Modi government at the Centre and to drum up support in Uttar Pradesh for the general elections. At the 30-day-long event, which began on May 30, party functionaries will have meals with the people, address awareness campaigns, hold rallies and baithaks in all 80 UP Lok Sabha seats, especially the ones that the BJP lost in 2019. As part of this, the BJP organised a grand training session for more than 600 volunteers and social media influencers.
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