Lucknow: Posters outside the Samajwadi Party headquarters featuring Dr B.R. Ambedkar and Akhilesh Yadav, with only half their faces visible and displayed side by side, have ignited a political backlash. Leaders of both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have accused the SP chief for hurting the sentiments of Dalits.
On Tuesday evening, the functionaries of Samajwadi Party Lohia Vahini, a youth wing of SP, put up the poster as part of a message welcoming people to a party event. Only the next day, some party workers gave a similar photo in a frame to Akhilesh.
BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya took to X on Wednesday to share a photo in which Akhilesh is holding the photo frame at the SP event.
“There can be no greater insult to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar—an architect of India’s Constitution and symbol for the Dalit community—than to distort his face and superimpose Akhilesh Yadav’s face on it,” Amit Malviya wrote in the post in Hindi. “No matter how many times Akhilesh Yadav is reborn, he can never match Babasaheb’s greatness or contributions in uplifting society’s deprived sections.”
After Malviya’s tweet, functionaries of the Uttar Pradesh BJP unit staged a protest against the SP chief across the state’s districts. The protesters raised slogans such as “Dalit Virodhi Samajwadi Party”.
The BJP later held a press conference in Delhi, with Union Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal criticising the Samajwadi Party for the posters.
“A poster of the Samajwadi Party shows half the face of Babasaheb, whereas the remaining half is of Akhilesh Yadav. This poster is an insult to Babasaheb Ambedkar. They are trying to get Dalit votes by showing this photo,” Arjun Ram Meghwal told the media.
Calling Akhilesh delusional, Meghwal said the Congress ensured Babasaheb lost his first election in 1952 and by-election in 1953, so “now that Akhilesh Yadav is with the Congress, how can the Dalit community support him?”
The BJP leader also referred to Akhilesh as the chief of a family party, founded by his father, Mulayam Singh. “Babasaheb was against nepotism. His (Akhilesh’s) ideologies do not match with Babasaheb,” added Arjun Ram Meghwal.
Later, UP’s Social Welfare Minister & Dalit leader Asim Arun released a statement, saying the SP hoarding wealth was a grave insult to Ambedkar. SP has a history of undermining Dalits and backwards classes, Asim Arun said, recalling how Akhilesh Yadav had scrapped several welfare schemes during his tenure as UP chief minister.
BSP supremo Mayawati’s nephew Akash Anand also targeted Akhilesh. “The tampering done by the SP people with the picture of our Babasaheb is an unpardonable crime. The SP not apologising for it only proves this is a well-planned conspiracy, whose mastermind is Akhilesh Yadav,” he said in a statement.
While Akhilesh has maintained his silence, his party functionaries have defended him.
Speaking to ThePrint, SP spokesperson Ashutosh Verma said, “BJP’s thought process is very narrow. They always try to deviate from real issues. It does not want people questioning the security lapses during the Pahalgam attack.”
Ashutosh Verma said that the BJP and the BSP are afraid of SP’s constant outreach to Dalits as a bigger section of Dalits is with Akhilesh now after his Pichda, Dalit and Minority (PDA) pitch. “So, they are targeting our party chief unnecessarily.”
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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