Emerging as the largest party in India’s by far most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party and its leader, Akhilesh Yadav, are perhaps the biggest success stories of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
The party’s incredible leap, jumping more than five times from its miserable tally of five seats in the Lower House after the last national elections, is a remarkable feat. Its score of 37 seats is the Samajwadi Party’s best-ever performance, beating the 35 seats it won in 2004 under the leadership of wily and veteran peasant leader Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Indeed, surpassing his father’s record is a huge personal boost to Akhilesh Yadav, who has often been criticised for lacking the former’s political acumen and organisational skills.
There was some indication of the younger Yadav’s rising stardom in the last state assembly polls when he led his party to victory in 111 seats with its best-ever voting percentage of 32.1 percent, becoming the only opposition to the BJP’s larger-than-life monk Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who crushed all other parties into the dust.