Senior Samajwadi leader and former speaker Mata Prasad Pandey said that SP president Akhilesh Yadav would field the maximum number of Brahmin candidates in the upcoming UP assembly polls, particularly in eastern UP, to ensure a return to power. Pandey was addressing a Brahmin summit organised by the party in the Katheri constituency in Ambedkar Nagar on Sunday.
"Brahmins have been persecuted by the current BJP government and the anger in the community is palpable. Brahmins, who constitute 13 per cent of the population, will get a lion's share of tickets this time and we will tap this simmering angst to notch up a poll victory," he said.
Brahmins are self-reliant and do not seek benefits from the government. All they seek is respect and dignity, he said.
Most Brahmin leaders from 20 UP districts who attended the conclave endorsed the former Speaker's views. They held up a battle axe of Lord Parshuram, which were distributed together with conch shells, and announced a 'dharma yudh' against the anti-people policies of the BJP government. The battle-axes and conch shells symbolise Brahmin pride, said Ashish Pandey Dipu, organiser of the Brahmin conclave.
Avoiding a question as to whether the SP was trying to replicate Mayawati's formula, SP vice president Jai Shankar Pandey said, "Each district will have one or two Brahmins in the fray on a Samajwadi Party ticket."
The Brahmin meet overlapped with Jan Vishwas Yatra flagged off by BJP national president JP Nadda in Akbarpur, the headquarter of Ambedkar Nagar district.