'P' in PDA stands for Pandit too: Samajwadi Party chief

New Delhi: After aggressively courting backward classes, Dalits and minorities under its PDA plank, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday made a pitch for Uttar Pradesh's politically influential Brahmin community ahead of the 2027 assembly elections.

Long identified with the Muslim-Yadav combine, SP has in recent years sought to widen its social base through its PDA (Picchda-Dalit-Alpsankhyak) strategy. With BSP steadily losing political ground and the battle for Dalit votes intensifying, SP has sharpened its outreach to woo the Scheduled Castes.

Yadav's outreach signals an attempt to make inroads among Brahmins, seeking to broaden SP's social coalition before the 2027 contest.


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Addressing a Brahmin Sammelan on the birth anniversary of socialist leader Janeshwar Mishra, Yadav said Pandits were also part of the PDA formulation, saying that 'P' in PDA stands for Pandit as well. "People keep redefining PDA after losing to it. But they have forgotten that 'P' also stands for Pandit. The more pain (peeda) they inflict, the stronger PDA will become," he said.

Yadav accused the BJP government in UP of targeting Opposition workers, Brahmins and religious leaders, including Shankaracharya Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati.

He alleged the government denied nod to hold the Brahmin Sammelan at Janeshwar Mishra Park in Lucknow, forcing SP to shift the event to its state headquarters.

The outreach comes amid renewed competition for Brahmin votes. In December, a gathering of BJP's nearly three dozen BJP MLAs and MLCs from the community triggered buzz and unease within the ruling party before the state leadership moved to play down its significance. In 2007 UP polls, a sizeable section of Brahmins backed Mayawati's BSP under its "social engineering" experiment, helping the Dalit-led party secure a majority on its own. Yadav's outreach comes as SP has intensified its attack on BJP over the alleged donation theft at the Ram temple.