The Samajwadi Party (SP) will field a maximum number of Brahmin candidates in the upcoming Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.
Senior Samajwadi leader and former Speaker, Mata Prasad Pandey, said that SP president Akhilesh Yadav would field maximum Brahmin candidates, particularly in eastern UP, to ensure a return to power.
Pandey was speaking at a Brahmin summit organised by the party in the Katheri constituency in Ambedkar Nagar on Sunday.
“Brahmins have been persecuted by the current BJP government and the anger in the community is palpable. Brahmins, who constitute 13 per cent of the population, will get a lion’s share of tickets this time and we will tap this simmering angst to notch up a poll victory,” he told reporters.
He said that Brahmins are self-reliant and do not seek benefits from the government. All they want is respect and dignity, he added.
Most Brahmin leaders from 20 UP districts who participated in the conclave endorsed the former Speaker’s views and held up the battle-axe of Lord Parshuram to announce a “dharm yudh” against the anti-people policies of the BJP government.
SP vice president Jai Shankar Pandey while avoiding a query on whether the Samajwadi Party was trying to replicate Mayawati’s social engineering formula, said, “Each district will have one or two Brahmins in the fray on a Samajwadi Party ticket.”
The Brahmin meet at Katehri coincided with ‘Jan Vishwas Yatra’ flagged off by BJP national president J.P. Nadda in Akbarpur, headquarter of Ambedkar Nagar district.
Brahmin icon Parshuram’s battle-axe motif along with conch shells was distributed to all.
Ashish Pandey Dipu, the organiser of Brahmin conclave, said, “We distributed battle axes and conche shells, which symbolise Brahmin pride.