Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections: Akhilesh Yadav focuses on small outfits

The SP's quest to rope in other "like-minded" smaller outfits continues with the polls still three months away

In the run-up to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections early next year, the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) has thrown down the gauntlet before the formidable Modi-Yogi duo in the country’s most populous state.

While Yadav has begun to tour different constituencies and address public meetings to mobilise the SP rank and file, he has concurrently started the tedious process of cobbling up an alliance of smaller outfits representing a mélange of castes and sub-castes.

Interestingly, Yadav has talked of accommodating the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia (PSPL), founded by his estranged uncle and former UP minister Shivpal Singh Yadav, although he had