LAST MILE PUSH BY AKHILESH

The party goes hyperlocal-promising manifestos tailored to each district's needs and grievances

- By Avaneesh Mishra

MASTER PLANS SP chief Akhilesh Yadav at a press conference in Lucknow, Sept. 17

UTTAR PRADESH is larger than countries like Britain and Uganda, and its vast sprawl is often scantily clad in the arteries that bring an even flow of things from elsewhere, material or otherwise. Add to that the centralised ways of our administration, and you have a distance between Lucknow and the local universe that's far more than geographical. The Samajwadi Party has now come up with an innovation that may alter that with radical decentralisation—well, at least at the level of election campaigning.

Shedding the broad strokes of statewide promises, the SP has promised what it calls “local manifestos”— hyper-specific documents tailored to the needs of each district. Mathura-Vrindavan, Hathras and Agra will be the first to get theirs, as party chief Akhilesh Yadav promised local partymen at a meeting in Lucknow. Soon, the idea was extended to Noida, Ghaziabad and Baghpat.

WHY THE WEST?