Akhilesh woos non- Yadav OBCs, while retaining PDA plank

Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav's has led a strategic shift for the candidate selection for the Lok Sabha elections and it is being perceived as an attempt to redesign his party's image away from being seen as pro-Muslim and pro-Yadav. The party has kept local caste equations and its ‘PDA' (Pichda, Dalit, and Alpsankhyak) slogan in mind, while selecting its candidates to woo non-Yadav Other Backward Classes (OBCs), who constitute about 35 per cent of the population. Among the 57 candidates declared by the SP so far, only four are Muslims and four are from the Yadav community. The majority of candidates are from general, Scheduled Caste (SC), and non-Yadav Other Backward Classes (OBC) backgrounds. The party has fielded Muslim candidates from Rampur, Kairana, Sambhal and Ghazipur. It has fielded candidates from the Yadav community from Azamgarh, Badaun, Firozabad and Mainpuri. It has also fielded nine candidates belonging to the general categories, 15 Scheduled Castes and 29 OBCs. It has also included candidates from the Jat, Gurjar, and Nishad communities. Akhilesh's wife, Dimple Yadav, is contesting from Mainpuri, while his three cousins—Dharmendra Yadav, Ashok Yadav, and Aditya Yadav—are contesting from Azamgarh, Firozabad, and Budaun Lok Sabha seats, respectively. SP will contest on 62 seats, leaving 17 for the Congress and one for the TMC.