On 27th February, the Bharatiya Janata Party managed to pull a remarkable victory in Rajya Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh and secured 8 out of 10 seats, stunning the opposition amid cross-voting by at least seven Samajwadi Party MLAs. The cross-voting has irked the entire ecosystem of I.N.D.I. Alliance including its disgruntled supporters in the media who have resorted to hurling insults at the party’s ‘upper caste’ leaders and labelled them “gaddar” (traitor) and “anti-OBC” (Other Backward Class).
Pragya Mishra, a YouTuber and ‘journalist’ used the offensive terminology to express her anger over political drama in the Samajwadi Party where the chief whip Manoj Pandey and several other MLAs cross-voted for BJP.
In a video titled “Brahmin-Thakur vidhayakon ne dhokha diya, haar ke bhi jeet gaye Akhilesh bhaiya” (Betrayal of Brahmin-Thakur lawmakers, Akhilesh brother won even after losing) uploaded on her YouTube channel on 27th February, she blatantly displayed her hatred while highlighting the caste of four of the seven legislators in bold letters who voted for the BJP. Furthermore, in a shameless portrayal of her casteist agenda, she conveniently ignored the names of the other two MLAs because they belonged to the lower caste.
Pragya Mishra stated, “The names of the MLAs of Akhilesh Yadav who chose to side with the BJP in the Rajya Sabha election are Manoj Pandey-Brahmin, Rakesh Pratap Singh-Thakur, Abhay Singh-Thakur, Rakesh Pandey-Brahmin and Vinod Chaturvedi-Brahmin.” The list also featured the names of Pooja Pal and Ashutosh Maurya but they were spared from her vitriolic rant by the virtue of their caste lineage.
She complained, “Five of the seven people mentioned in the list are upper caste, two Thakurs and three Brahmins. It means that the ones who don’t want the PDA (Pichhde, Dalit, and Alpsankhyak) to become strong, those who dislike the PDA, hate the backward class and cannot stand their progress, turned out to be traitors and have been identified in due time.” The Samajwadi Party has showcased PDA as its campaign trope for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and beyond. She then quoted Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and stated that it was not his loss but in fact a victory.
Pragya Mishra rationalised the statement by alleging that if the MLAs had not exposed themselves now, it would have damaged the I.N.D.I. Alliance in the upcoming general election. She added that it has provided a valuable lesson to Akhilesh Yadav and he would be better prepared for the 2024 Lok Sabha poll. She also quoted Samajwadi Party leaders to lash out at the BJP and further prove her point.
Pragya’s ‘gaddar’ rant is strangely similar to Akhilesh Yadav’s post on ‘loyalty’
Interestingly, Pragya Mishra’s rant was very similar to what Akhilesh Yadav posted on X. “Our third seat (bid) in the Rajya Sabha was actually a test to identify the true companions and to know who was with the PDA at heart and who was against the backward classes, Dalits and minorities by conscience,” Akhilesh Yadav wrote in Hindi on X.
हमारी राज्यसभा की तीसरी सीट दरअसल सच्चे साथियों की पहचान करने की परीक्षा थी और ये जानने की कि कौन-कौन दिल से PDA के साथ और कौन अंतरात्मा से पिछड़े, दलित और अल्पसंख्यकों के ख़िलाफ़ है।
— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) February 27, 2024
अब सब कुछ साफ़ है, यही तीसरी सीट की जीत है। pic.twitter.com/SWzDhvtnvF
On 27th February, the Samajwadi Party suffered a major dent when the party’s chief whip Manoj Pandey resigned from his post ahead of the crucial voting for Rajya Sabha seats. Pandey is an SP MLA from Unchahar in the Raebareli district. Ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections, he announced that he would be voting for the BJP candidate. The Samajwadi Party accepted his resignation and Pandey’s nameplate was removed from outside the chief whip’s office.
In total, 7 MLAs cross-voted for the BJP, as per reports. Akhilesh Yadav later claimed that the third seat bid was a ‘loyalty test’ to filter out disloyal MLAs. He added that he is glad that MLAs who did not support the PDA (Pichhde, Dalit, Alpsankhyak, meaning backward, Dalits and minorities) wholeheartedly.
More importantly, these same people willingly ignore the attacks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his backward caste by senior leaders of the opposition because it doesn’t suit their political agenda. However, this doesn’t come as a surprise as hypocrisy is an integral component of the opposition and its lackeys masquerading as otherwise.
Notably, caste politics which used to be considered as a domain of regional parties like Lalu Prasad Yadav’s Rashtriya Janata Dal and late Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party among others has also been taken up by the Gandhi scion Rahul Gandhi who is latching onto the most destructive and polarising policies in an attempt to revive the Congress party.
Rahul Gandhi and his divisive caste politics
Rahul Gandhi has promised to conduct a nationwide caste census if the opposition coalition is voted to power in the centre. Referring to his campaign as “jitni abadi utna haq” (rights proportionate to population) he has repeatedly called for a caste census after failing to do the same while Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was in the government for an entire decade from 2004 to 2014. Ironically, historical Parliament documents revealed that former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi strongly disagreed with this notion and even charged that his successor Vishwanath Pratap (VP) Singh was attempting to use the Mandal Commission report to instigate caste conflicts in the nation.
Senior advocate and Congress party veteran Abhishek Manu Singhvi had also schooled Rahul Gandhi and stated the idea would ultimately culminate in “majoritarianism”. He also pointed out that equality of opportunity is not the same as equality of outcomes. However, he had to remove the social media post after Rahul Gandhi’s loyalist and party’s general secretary in charge of communication Jairam Ramesh distanced Congress from the tweet and remarked that the views don’t reflect the stance of the party.
Rahul Gandhi is turning to offering perilous promises that could have disastrous consequences for the country in an attempt to salvage his collapsing party. India is still recovering from the heat of the Mandal Commission fire. However, Rahul Gandhi and the opposition seem to be determined to put India, which is currently developing rapidly, back on the same path and undo all of the progress it accomplished in recent years for petty political gains. It has become the new norm in their political discourse to bring up caste and detest the upper castes to pretend to be pro-backwards class and minorities in the eyes of voters.
