Akhilesh Yadav accuses BJP of coercive tactics against marginalised groups

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party, which governs both at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh, of using force and coercive methods to intimidate marginalised communities.

His statement came a day after a vehicle belonging to party MP Laxmikant, also known as Pappu Nishad, was allegedly damaged in a stone-pelting incident during a Ganesh idol immersion procession in a village in Sant Kabir Nagar district.

In a post on X, Mr. Yadav said that by targeting leaders and public representatives of the Lodhi and Nishad communities, BJP members and the BJP government were attempting to overawe the PDA society — an acronym he uses for pichhde (backward classes), Dalits and alpsankhyak (minorities).

With assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh only months away, Mr. Yadav said the BJP, which suffered a setback in the State in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, was seeking to move past its "major defeat" through coercive means rather than democratic ones. He asserted that the party's "negative politics" would no longer succeed and warned that a loss this time would be permanent.

According to the SP MP's account, the trouble began on Friday night when an altercation broke out between the owner of a music system and the organisers of the Ganesh Chaturthi immersion, prompting members of the Puja Samiti to sit on the road in protest. His vehicle, passing through the area at the time, reportedly grazed a person in the crowd, after which a mob surrounded the vehicle and smashed a window. The MP said he was returning after meeting flood victims and was stuck in a traffic jam at the crossing when slogans were raised against him and stones were thrown at the vehicle after people spotted the party flag. Police evacuated him safely and have registered a case.

Mr. Yadav also claimed that the Ram Temple donation theft case and attacks on the revered Shankaracharya had exposed "irreligious" BJP members and their allies, turning the sanatan society against the party and ending its communal politics. He alleged that those involved were now busy revealing each other's secrets of corruption and dishonesty in a scramble to divide the spoils.

Reiterating his party's commitment to a "brotherly nation" built on social justice, the SP chief said this would give rise to a progressive "neo-India" shaped by the positive thinking of the youth, where no one is victimised, unhappy or humiliated, and where the weak, exploited, deprived and oppressed in every section of society have the opportunity to flourish on the basis of equality.