Backward classes will defeat BJP in Lok Sabha poll in U.P., says SP leader Swami Prasad Maurya

Former allies are joining the NDA to serve their own interests and not to protect the rights of the marginalised, says SP’s national general secretary Swami Prasad Maurya

As national general secretary of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and its leading non-Yadav OBC face, Swami Prasad Maurya, 69, has a vital role to play in fulfilling the party’s slogan for the 2024 Lok Sabha poll: ‘80 harao, BJP hatao’. To defeat the ruling party in all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh and dislodge it from power at the Centre, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had planned to form a social alliance of three groups classified as PDA: pichde (backward classes), Dalits, and alpsankhyak (minorities). That strategy suffered a blow when its former ally Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party chief Om Prakash Rajbhar and former SP MLA Dara Singh Chauhan, prominent leaders representing the backward classes, rejoined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Mr. Maurya spoke about the changing political equations in the State, the SP’s strategy for the 2024 election, and drawing the ire of Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami. Excerpts: