Lucknow/Ballia (UP), Oct 23 Hoardings tarring the SP as a communal, mafiosi party with images of Akhilesh Yadav in a skullcap along with slain gangster Atiq Ahmad and jailed leader Azam Khan came up in several places across Uttar Pradesh on Friday as polling was underway for 11 legislative council seats.
Irate Samajwadi Party (SP) workers tore down some of the hoardings and banners, accusing the BJP of indulging in petty politics and attempting to disturb the atmosphere on polling day.
“The BJP thought it could influence the polling by putting up these hoardings. Our candidates, Ashutosh Sinha from the graduate constituency and Lal Bihari Yadav from the teachers’ constituency, are winning. Out of frustration, they wanted to create tension. We tore down the hoardings,” Samajwadi Yuvjan Sabha state president Arvind Giri told PTI.
Voting for 11 seats in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council, comprising five graduate and six teachers’ constituencies, began at 8 am.
One poster in Ballia, for instance, showed party chief Akhilesh Yadav in a skullcap, with Ahmad, who was shot dead in 2023, Azam Khan, convicted along with his son in dual/fraudulent PAN card cases, and gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, who had also been jailed and died in 2024.
The slogan emblazoned across read, “SaPa-iyon (Samajwadi Party leaders) ka kya bharosa. Danga, iftaar aur biryani, SP raj ki asal kahani”.
Another, showing Akhilesh Yadav in his party’s trademark red cap with several other leaders, including wife Dimple Yadav, had this slogan after the “SaPa-iyon ka kya bharosa” tagline: “Dal, chawal or achaar, party matlab parivar”.
A third said, “Khaini aur Banarasi paan, aur budget chala gaya kabristan”.
In Ballia, the hoardings and posters appeared at several locations in the morning, prompting infuriated SP workers to tear them down, police said.
Ballia Kotwali in-charge Praveen Kumar Singh said no one had claimed responsibility for putting up the hoardings. Police are investigating the matter.
In Lucknow, hoardings targeting Akhilesh Yadav and his family, including his wife and others such as Ram Gopal Yadav and Shivpal Yadav, were seen near Janeshwar Mishra Park in Gomti Nagar and at other prominent locations.
Similar banners were reported to have been put up along the Sitapur highway and at key intersections in the state capital.
SP leaders accused the BJP of using the state machinery to run a malicious campaign on polling day to influence voters and divert attention from governance issues.
The fresh hoardings come amid an ongoing poster war between the BJP and the SP.
In a post on X in Hindi, Akhilesh Yadav said, “Our question is not who is putting up such offensive posters; our question is, who is getting them put up?”
“By the way, we already have the answer to this question, but we want to hear the name of the main ‘financier’ behind these posters from the government itself.
“Has the outgoing government become so weak that such posters are being openly displayed, yet neither the police can see them nor the local administration? The BJP government should get cataract surgery done on its administration,” he said.
“The more such posters are put up, the more united the PDA society is becoming. If possible, get as many posters put up as you can at every major intersection in UP. You are welcome. Thanks in advance!” the SP chief said.
“PDA” is an acronym used by Akhilesh Yadav for the collective of ‘pichhde’ (backward classes), Dalits and ‘alpsankhyak’ (minorities), which forms a key plank of the SP’s political outreach.
On October 18, two days before Dussehra, hoardings depicting the faces of Akhilesh Yadav, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and US entrepreneur Elon Musk among the 10 heads of demon king Ravan came up at several locations in Lucknow.
Put up by the Sanatan Raksha Sangathan, the hoardings described them as “Enemies of Sanatan Bharat”. SP workers later removed the hoardings.
Earlier, posters targeting Yadav and other SP leaders as “katiyabaaz (power thieves)” had appeared at several locations in Lucknow, alleging discriminatory electricity supply during SP rule. The SP had accused the BJP government of orchestrating the campaign.
(PTI News)
