Akhilesh to launch poll campaign in UP with his cycle yatra today

LUCKNOW: Akhilesh Yadav, the national president of the Samajwadi Party, is all set to ride the bicycle (also the SP poll symbol) again, covering a 20-km stretch in Lucknow on Monday.

Dubbed as the ‘Samajwadi PDA Yatra,’ this bicycle rally will mark the launch of the party’s campaign for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Akhilesh has been a well-known advocate of bicycle campaigns, a tradition he has maintained during every election season since his entry into politics in 1999-2000 when he first became an MP.

The yatra aims to highlight the SP’s 2024 election slogan, ‘PDA -- Pichada, Dalit, Alpsankhyak (backward, Dalits and minorities, especially Muslims),’ a bloc of voters that constitutes about 85 per cent of the total voters in the state.

The SP’s ongoing ‘Desh Bachao, Desh Banao’ bicycle rally has been continuing uninterrupted for 82 days since its launch from Prayagraj on August 9, passing through Kaushambhi, Chitrakoot, Banda, Fatehpur, Rae Bareli, Pratapgarh, Amethi, Sultanpur, Ambedkar Nagar, Faizabad, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur, Deoria, Kushinagar, Maharajganj, Sidhartha Nagar, Balrampur, Shravasti, Bahraich and Gonda.

It has now reached Barabanki and will enter Lucknow on Monday where Akhilesh will join it.

This leg of the ‘Desh Bachao, Desh Banao’ cycle rally will be referred to as the ‘Samajwadi PDA Yatra’ and will cover a 20 km route from the Lucknow end of the Purvanchal Expressway to the Janeshwar Mishra Park.

Akhilesh, along with party workers and leaders, will ride bicycles from the Purvanchal Expressway and reach Janeshwar Mishra Park, passing through Kabirpur, the Indira canal bridge, Kisan Path, Amul Plant, the Cancer hospital, HCL gate, Ekana stadium, Police headquarters, Rapti apartments and DPS school.

“Most of these landmarks were established during the previous SP government led by Akhilesh Yadav,” said the party’s national secretary Rajendra Chaudhary.

The Samajwadi PDA Yatra will strive to emphasise the SP’s PDA formula and its call for a caste census.

This first phase of the ‘Desh Bachao, Desh Banao’ yatra will conclude on November 22, coinciding with the birth anniversary of the party’s founder, the late Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The yatra’s final destination will be Mulayam’s ‘samadhi’ in his ancestral village, Saifai, Etawah where Akhilesh Yadav will also be present in Saifai to welcome the yatra and lay the foundation for a grand memorial in honour of Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The Samajwadi Party is a member of the INDIA bloc, a nationwide alliance of opposition parties gearing up to challenge the ruling BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.