Raman Yadav, 26, a lean youth of middling stature, and his similarly built group of six friends embarked on a bicycle journey from Etah to Lucknow earlier this month to campaign for the Samajwadi Party. They covered the 250km in six days, staying the night at local party offices on the way.
Each two-wheeler sported the red-and-green flag of the SP and pictures of a bicycle — the election symbol of the party — and Akhilesh Yadav. The cycles also had small loudspeakers attached to them.
On October 9, when The Telegraph met them, the seven youths were pumping their cycle tyres at a shop in Mainpuri town. They asked the shopkeeper to put grease in the cycles’ bearings and assembly points. The chain of one of the cycles was loose and kept coming off the sprocket.
“Can you fix the chain?” one of the campaigners asked the shopkeeper, also one of the mechanics.
“The chain is loose and I need to remove two extra links to tighten it. It will take 20 minutes and cost ₹20,” replied the shopkeeper, taller and healthier than the campaigners.
Raman got angry. “Bees rupaiya?” he shouted and asked his friends: “Let us move on, he is making a fool of us.”
The shopkeeper looked offended. “Am I cheating you?” he asked them, tears in his eyes.
“What else?” Raman bellowed, and all seven resumed their journey towards Saifai, the village of party chief Akhilesh in Etawah district, which is their next halt.
The shopkeeper muttered: “Kaam ke paise ki jagah gaali dete hain (They abuse instead of paying for the services).”
He noticed this reporter watching everything and became suspicious. “No, I am not saying anything,” he said.
Asked why he can’t vent his anger at not being paid for repairing the cycle or for the pump, he remained silent. Another man came out of a shop on the other side of the road and replied: “This is how things move here, or else someone from their side will damage the shop or harm the shopkeeper.”
Before this episode, Raman had told The Telegraph: “It is my second PDA Cycle Yatra this year. I had criss-crossed Uttar Pradesh in February along with some friends. I started afresh two days ago in support of the Saifai family. We want Akhilesh Bhaiya to become chief minister of Uttar Pradesh once again.”
PDA (Pichhra-OBC, Dalit, Alpsankhyak-Muslim) is a new slogan of the SP as the party tries to project a support base wider than its traditional Yadav-Muslim vote bank.
A brief conversation this newspaper had with Raman:
Q: What will you get in return for campaigning for Akhilesh?
A: Nothing. It is our wish and we are working to fulfil it.
Q: What do you do for a living?
A: Nothing. This is my full-time job.
Q: Do you get money for it?”
A: “No, I am self-motivated. There are 700 such people like me riding bicycles for the party from place to place.”
As they left the shop, the shopkeeper remained upset for a few moments and then resumed work on another cycle.
Later, Hariom Dwivedi, a local, said they were caught between the devil and the deep sea: “The SP’s supporters are vocal here but the BJP voters are disillusioned. We want to defeat the BJP but the only outfit that appears strong enough to upset the ruling party is the SP. Unfortunately, it has only unruly followers who don’t know how to respect others. We supported Jaiveer Singh of the BJP in 2022, but his men started doing exactly what the SP had been doing for the past many decades. We unnecessarily blamed Atiq Ahmed, Mukhtar Ansari and other mafia leaders in politics. Even here, the unpopular leaders win.”
Atiq, a gangster turned MP from Phulpur, was assassinated in police custody in Allahabad in 2023. Mukhtar, a gangster turned MLA, died in Banda jail under mysterious circumstances in 2024.
“Jaiveer Singh’s victory margin against the BJP’s Raj Kumar Yadav in Mainpuri Sadar was only about 6,800 votes. A small mistake and he will lose. Although Jaiveer has started meeting people, there is a rumour that the BJP may replace him with some other candidate. There is also a rumour that a woman candidate from the (Akhilesh) Yadav family will contest from here on the SP’s ticket. In that case, the BJP should forget about this seat,” Dwivedi said.
Jaiveer, minister of tourism and culture in the UP government, held a media conference in Mainpuri recently and said: “Akhilesh and his partymen are perturbed because of their defeat in past elections and are making baseless allegations against us. They also spread misinformation.”
Dimple Yadav, Akhilesh’s wife, is the Mainpuri MP. The Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat has five Assembly segments. Besides Mainpuri Sadar, the BJP also holds Bhongaon. The SP has its MLAs in Kishni, Karhal and Jaswantnagar, which have a substantial Yadav population.
“The core voters of the BJP are looking for an option other than the SP. They would, however, prefer to vote for the BJP instead of switching to the SP, which has the maximum number of goons. The problem with the sitting MLA (Jaiveer) is that even the BJP cadres don’t trust him. He was in the BSP and the SP in the past and never with the RSS. Non-Yadav locals feared him when he was in the SP, as well,” said a journalist in Mainpuri on the condition of anonymity.
Of about 3.40 lakh voters each in Mainpuri and Bhogaon, Shakya, Lodh, Yadav and Scheduled Castes are together in a decisive position in terms of numbers. But only the Yadavs are the key factor in the remaining three seats.
“With the Yadavs in their pocket, the SP has made Alok Shakya its district president to win their votes,” said Santosh Dubey, a dhaba owner.
Apparently knowing well the grey area of his party, Shakya skirted local issues and said: “We are part of the INDIA bloc and contesting this time to save democracy. The BJP will not succeed in its plan to hijack the constitution.”
Amid all this, the campaign style of the SP is matchless. Besides the cyclists, there are wayfarers roaming in groups. Saurav Yadav, one such Samajwadi foot-soldier from Kasganj, told this newspaper: “There are about 500 youths in this region who have hit the streets.” Asked what they get in return, Saurav replied instantly: “Nothing.”
Discussing this stock answer, the editor of a newspaper in Etawah said: “The minimum worth of a Yadav with a ‘nothing’ in this area is ₹5 crore. This has happened in the last two decades only.”