Two days after he was seen meeting with Akhilesh Yadav in Lucknow on Thursday, Azad Samaj Party and Bhim Army chief, the lawyer-turned-activist Chandrashekhar Azad ‘Ravan’, has turned back on allying with the Samajwadi Party in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. It was earlier being anticipated that the Azad Samaj Party which was recently founded in 2020, would be one of the Samajwadi Party’s many regional allies in the state.
Azad is a native of Saharanpur in Western Uttar Pradesh and his grassroots organization Bhim Army was aimed at uplifting and socially strengthening Scheduled Caste communities of the region. He came into prominence against the backdrop of violence against Dalits in the region in 2016 and has been active as a youth face in many protests since, including the Shaheen Bagh and anti-CAA,NRC protests of 2020.
‘Humiliated Us’: Azad After Seat Sharing Talks With Samajwadi Party Fail
Chadrashekhar Azad said that Akhilesh Yadav “wants to use Dalits as a vote bank” and “does not want the support of Dalits” after talks apparently fell out. His demand was for 10 seats for the party whereas the SP was willing to give them only 3. He went as far as to say that “Akhilesh ji humiliated us… and the bahujan samaj”.
“In the end, I felt Akhileshji doesn't want Dalit leaders in this alliance... he only wants Dalit votes. My fear was that if Dalits vote for him and he forms the government, we won't be able to talk to him about our problems... if we're beaten, if our lands are stolen and our women raped, like Hathras”.
Azad has said earlier that Mayawati, the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party, is not working for Dalit welfare anymore, after making attempts in the past to reach out to her party. He had said in July 2021 that Mayawati has softened her politics for fear of central agencies, and that his party was the true representative of Kanshi Ram’s ideology and an alternative to the party he founded.
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