Akhilesh Yadav doesn't want Dalit votes
Disillusioned Bhim Army leader Chandrashekhar Azad on Saturday said that SP chief Akhilesh Yadav doesn"t want Dalit votes.
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Lucknow, Jan 15: As Samajwadi party leader Akhilesh yadav tries to unite all anti BJP votes towards him, Bhim army chief Chandrashekhar Azad’s statement is being seen as a big jolt to former UP CM.
Chandrashekhar Azad said Saturday that his political outfit - the Azad Samaj Party - would not ally with the Samajwadi Party for next month's Uttar Pradesh Assembly election.
After all the discussions, in the end, I felt that Akhilesh Yadav does not want Dalits in this alliance, he just wants Dalit vote bank. He humiliated the people of Bahujan Samaj, I tried for 1 month 3 days but the alliance could not happen: Bhim Army Chief Chandrashekhar Azad pic.twitter.com/Yx3YgMT9wY
— ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) January 15, 2022
Samajwadi chief Akhilesh Yadav "does not want the support of Dalits", Mr Azad told reporters. "Yesterday Akhileshji humiliated us... yesterday Akhileshji humiliated the bahujan samaj," Chandrashekhar Azad said, a day after meeting the Samajwadi Party chief to discuss seat-sharing.
"In the end, I felt Akhileshji doesn't want Dalit leaders in this alliance... he only wants Dalit votes. My fear was that if Dalits vote for him and he forms the government, we won't be able to talk to him about our problems... if we're beaten, if our lands are stolen and our women raped, like Hathras."
Mr Azad and Mr Yadav were understood to have a broad agreement in place to contest these polls together, with the Bhim Army chief likely to stand from his stronghold in Saharanpur.
"Akhileshji told us a month ago that we will fight the election together. I was here for two days to discuss our joint fight. I wanted to join with Akhileshji to stop the BJP, but he doesn't want to give representation to the Dalits," Azad said.
"I will decide on my next steps in two days... there might be a third front ready soon," he said. Ahead of the UP election, Akhilesh Yadav has emerged as the biggest challenge to the ruling BJP.
Mr Yadav has spurned help from larger parties like the Congress and stitched together a "rainbow" alliance of regional outfits, such as Omprakash Rajbhar's Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (which signed up with the Samajwadi Party last year) and Jayant Chaudhary's Rashtriya Lok Dal.
In 2017 the BJP's strategy was to win over the non-Yadav OBC castes given Mr Yadav's most loyal voters are seen to be Yadavs and Muslims. This time round, the Samajwadi Party leader's game-plan is to emulate the success by pulling in the non-Yadav OBC leaders.