Samajwadi Party looking to build on its gains in the UP panchayat polls

The SP has claimed the party supported candidates on 1,500 of the 3,050 seats to elect district panchayat members, and over 800 won

“Dobara Akhilesh (Akhilesh again)” is the catchphrase which the Samajwadi Party (SP) will use in its campaign for the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections. Only a few, if any, might have taken the tagline seriously some months ago, given that the SP was not visible on the ground to the extent a principal Opposition party should in the over four years of Yogi Adityanath’s rule. But after the SP acquitted itself fairly creditably in the recent panchayat polls, it emerged as the main challenger to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
 
The three-layered polls to elect rural local bodies were