As BJP's Brahmin base in UP looks shaky, SP & BSP make a pitch for votes

According to a political observer: Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav may work for the castes they represent but they will never harm Brahmins

For the last two years in Uttar Pradesh, the palpable unrest among Brahmins, caused by certain policies and moves of the Yogi Adityanath government, manifested itself in religious symbols and iconography. The scrapping of a public holiday on “Parashuram Jayanti” was resented by Brahmin leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and seized upon by the Opposition to stoke the community’s sentiment. Mythicised as the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, Parashuram, a lesser-known figure in the Hindu pantheon, was embraced by the heartland Brahmins because he denoted a muscular quality that took shape when he annihilated the Kshatriyas 21 times to