Breaking SP hold on Yadavs its long game, BJP now deploys Madhya Pradesh CM in UP

A surprise choice as Madhya Pradesh chief minister, the BJP has utilised Mohan Yadav not just in his state but also in Bihar and is now looking to do the same in Uttar Pradesh. The party has invoked Hindu deity Krishna and made Yadav the face of its outreach to the community.

In his second visit to UP in less than a month, the Madhya Pradesh CM addressed the “Yadav Mahakumbh” in Lucknow, telling the crowd they should be proud to be “Yaduvanshi (from the lineage of Krishna)”. A petitioner in the Krishna Janmabhoomi case in Mathura, Manish Yadav, organised the event. The BJP’s strategy, as underlined by the message sent out during the event, is to break the Samajwadi Party’s (SP) Yadav vote bank, similar to the aim it has in Bihar where it wants to erode the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD) Yadav support.

At the event, the Madhya Pradesh CM, in a dig at SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, said the “Yaduvanshi” had the right to prosper as a community and not just “one family”. “We are proud that we come from the lineage connected to Shri Krishna,” Yadav told the crowd in Lucknow. The Madhya Pradesh CM told the crowd that he had started work on developing “teerth kshetra (pilgrimage sites)” associated with Krishna in his state. Emphasising his link with UP, Yadav who was in Azamgarh last month reminded the crowd his “sasural (the home of his in-laws)” is in the state and decades ago his ancestors migrated from Azamagarh to Madhya Pradesh. He also promised to keep coming back to the state. “I will keep meeting you … It does not bother if someone has a problem,” he said.

Earlier in the day, the Mahakumbh’s organiser Manish Yadav targeted Akhilesh saying that some select members of the community in a handful of regions benefitted under SP rule.