‘SP chief is driven merely by inclination for Muslim votes’ | Lucknow News

Lucknow: Expelled Samajwadi Party MLA Pooja Pal on Tuesday said she was initially drawn to SP after considering party chief Akhilesh Yadav‘s “hard stance” against mafia-turned-politicians, including Atiq Ahmad, Mukhtar Ansari, and DP Yadav, during his tenure as CM between 2012 and 2017. Elected twice on a BSP ticket from the Allahabad West assembly seat—in 2007 and 2012—Pal contested the 2022 assembly elections on an SP ticket and managed to win the Chail assembly seat in Kaushambi by defeating BJP ally Apna Dal’s Nagendra Singh Patel by a margin of over 13,000 votes. “It was then a different Samajwadi Party under Akhilesh Yadav. It was a party that was showing its keenness to keep the mafia at a distance,” said Pal, the widow of BSP MLA Raju Pal who was murdered in full public view in 2005 after he defeated Atiq Ahmad’s brother Khalid Azim, aka Ashraf, in a by-election from the Allahabad West assembly seat. Ashraf then contested as an SP candidate. Pooja, who was recently expelled from the SP by Akhilesh for speaking in favour of the CM Yogi Adityanath and his govt for taking action against Atiq, further drew a contrast, saying that the SP boss has undergone “enormous change”. “He is now merely driven by his inclination for the electoral support of Muslims. As apparent, he got offended by my criticism of Atiq, irrespective of his criminal background,” she said, while speaking to TOI. After getting elected twice from Allahabad West, Pal lost the seat to BJP’s Siddhartnath Singh in 2017. “I fell to conspiracies hatched by Atiq, whom I’d defeated in the 2012 assembly elections,” she said. Atiq then contested on an Apna Dal ticket. Pal recalled how days before the 2017 assembly elections, her election office in Allahabad (now Prayagraj) got repeatedly flooded with Muslim supporters. This was the time when BSP chief Mayawati went overtly supportive of minority votes and decided to field as many as 100 Muslim candidates in the assembly election. “However, theories were planted to paint me as anti-Hindu. I realised that I would lose the elections. And that’s exactly what happened,” said Pal, who claimed to wield considerable support amongst the OBCs and SCs. She was subsequently picked up by the SP and fielded from the Chail assembly seat in Kaushambi in 2022, which she won. The estranged SP leader remains noncommittal about joining the BJP, at least for now. “I will first consult my supporters before charting out my next political move,” she said. BJP sources, too, said that the party was factoring in all possible aspects before taking any decision on Pal. Significantly, Pooja supported the BJP during the Rajya Sabha elections in 2024. At the same time, the BJP sensed a chance to depict Pal as a “victimised OBC leader” as a potential counter to SP’s ‘Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak’ (PDA) poll narrative, which is said to have dented the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Meanwhile, reports of blue-coloured hoardings of Pooja Pal cropping up in Allahabad have created a fresh buzz. These hoardings have been erected in the Dadhikando fair being held in Prayagraj. The hoarding, having a picture of BR Ambedkar, has set speculations of Pal vis-a-vis her past allegiance towards BSP.