A NEW TURF WAR

Eastern Uttar Pradesh was abuzz with political anticipation on November 13 as chief minister Yogi Adityanath, accompanied by Union home minister Amit Shah, arrived in Azamgarh, the Lok Sabha seat of Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav, to lay the foundation stone of a state university to be built on 50 acres at a cost of Rs 108 crore.

- Ashish Misra

On Shah’s cue, Adityanath announced the university will be named after Maharaja Suheldev, an icon of the backward Rajbhar community influential in 24 districts of Purvanchal and Awadh. The Rajbhars form the voter base of Akhilesh’s new ally, the Om Prakash Rajbhar-led Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP).

If Shah and Adityanath were challenging the SP on its own turf, Akhilesh was daring the BJP by launching his ‘Vijay Yatra’ the same day from Gorakhpur, the chief minister’s home district. “Yogi ji did not give the (promised) laptops to the youth because he does not know how to operate a laptop himself. UP needs a yogya (able) government, not a Yogi government,” he told a gathering in Gorakhpur’s Kusumhi Bazar.

The 2022 electoral battle for UP is intensifying with the incumbent BJP and its principal challenger, the SP, driving their campaigns into each other’s strongholds (See