Akhilesh Yadav, the Ambedkarite

During the 2022 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the Dalit bangle makers in Firozabad, a traditional bastion of the Samajwadi Party (SP), said that they trusted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) more because they had suffered at the hands of the Yadavs.

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“During SP rule, our women were forcibly denied ration shop queues. It was much like how our leader (Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati) was assaulted by SP goons in the State guest house (in 1995),” said an artisan. The distrust was deep despite the SP and the BSP having come together for the 2019 general elections. Cut to November 2024. Ahead of the bypolls, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav addressed rallies in western U.P. In each rally, he would underline his Other Backward Classes (OBC) identity. He would mention how after he lost power in 2017 and vacated the official residence of the Chief Minister in Lucknow, the BJP cleansed the premises with Gangajal as an act of purification. He would then speak about the Kannauj incident in 2024 where BJP workers washed the precincts of a temple after he visited it to offer prayers during his Lok Sabha election campaign. By narrating these incidents, Mr. Yadav would align his identity with the Dalits, who have historically been treated as “impure” by the so-called upper castes.