'M-Y' stands for 'mahila' and youth in new SP: Akhilesh
Lucknow, Sep 17 (IANS) "Nai hawa hai, Nai SaPa hai', is the new tag line for the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh.
To match this, the party is also giving a new meaning to its M-Y (Muslim-Yadav) formula that has catapulted it to power in Uttar Pradesh more than once.
"In the new SP, M-Y stands for Mahila (women) and Youth. We are addressing issues in a larger perspective now and are not shackled by casteism," said SP president Akhilesh Yadav in an informal interaction with reporters.
The Samajwadi Party, apparently, wants to rise above caste lines and address women and youth as a community.
He said that farmers' issues had been totally ignored by the BJP and the youth were deprived of jobs.
"These issues will be the poll plank in the upcoming elections," he added.
Talking about women, he said that the cases of crime against women proved that they were not secure in this regime.
"We had set up helplines for women but this government made them ineffective. All talk about women is on paper and not in reality," he said.
He claimed that the public was frustrated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government and would vote the SP back to power.
"SP will form the government with the ideology of party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and new strategies," he explained.
Akhilesh strongly refuted allegations of nepotism against his party and said that SP always had place for every hard working, socialist and spirited worker.
"Instead, it is the BJP that has no respect for its workers. Those who have devoted their lives for the party have been side-lined while turncoats have been rewarded with ministerial posts," he stated.
Speaking about his uncle and Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia (PSPL) chief Shivpal Yadav, he said alliance with all parties with the same ideology was possible, but SP would not join hands with larger parties because the experience with them had not been very good.
He further said that the BJP was taking credit for development works strategized during the SP regime.