Akhilesh Yadav Banners Put Up in Lucknow, Raising Tensions With Congress

In Lucknow on Monday, banners portraying Akhilesh Yadav as the “future Prime Minister” were displayed. This action might potentially escalate animosity between the Congress and Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the general election in the next year.

Banners bearing the words "Heartiest congratulations to respected Sri Akhilesh Yadavji, future Prime Minister of the country on his birthday" were released by state Samajwadi spokesperson Fakhrul Hasan Chaand in Hindi.

"Even though Akhilesh was born on July 1st, we are celebrating it today out of love for him," Chaand stated to The Telegraph.

The opposition coalition INDIA, which includes the Congress and the Samajwadi Party, was established to oppose the Narendra Modi administration in the 2024 parliamentary elections.

At the Samajwadi headquarters' gates, Chaand told this publication, "We want them to project Akhilesh as one, because the INDIA bloc doesn't have a prime ministerial face."

"The Samajwadi Party can prevent the BJP from establishing the government at the federal level in 2024 by winning all 80 of Uttar Pradesh's parliamentary seats. Everyone in the nation is in favor of Akhilesh becoming prime minister.

Insiders close to the Samajwadi Party asserted that the banners were up in retribution for Uttar Pradesh Congress President Ajay Rai's statement that his party was prepared to run for all 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

"We are getting ready to run candidates in every seat in Uttar Pradesh," Rai had reiterated on Sunday in front of party members in Lucknow.

When he first said this on October 18, Akhilesh responded by saying that "chirkut" (meaningless) leaders ought to stop saying things like that the following day.

Akhilesh had also stated that if the Congress failed to award the Samajwadi Party a few seats in the upcoming Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, the party will not share seats with the Congress in Uttar Pradesh.

"Forget Akhilesh, we are going to form the government here on our own," Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Kamal Nath said to reporters in Bhopal on October 19, when they were asked to react on this assertion.

Enraged by this statement, Samajwadi general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav stated on October 21 that "he is a chhutbaiya (small-time) leader from Madhya Pradesh," without naming the individual.

The majority of political analysts think it would be difficult for the Samajwadis and the Congress to share seats in Uttar Pradesh during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Members of the Congress working committee Shashi Tharoor stated last week in Thiruvananthapuram that if the INDIA bloc wins in 2024, his party would probably campaign for Rahul Gandhi or Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge to become prime minister.

"I believe that the leaders of those parties will need to get together and choose someone once the results are in because it's a coalition rather than a single party," Tharoor stated.

However, given that the Congress is essentially a family-run organization, my prediction is that either Mr. Kharge, who would become India's first Dalit prime minister, or Rahul Gandhi will win the position from the Congress party.