Editor’s Note
This article details recent organizational appointments within the Samajwadi Party, made ahead of upcoming local elections. The move is seen as an effort to strengthen the party’s structure and consolidate its core voter base.
Ahead of the panchayat elections, the Samajwadi Party (SP) has announced appointments for the district and city president posts, which had been vacant for six months, in a bid to consolidate the PDA (Pichhda, Dalit, Alpasankhyak – Backward, Dalit, Minority) vote bank. On the instructions of SP National President Akhilesh Yadav, State President Shyam Lal Pal on Friday appointed Udal Singh Kushwaha as the district president. Meanwhile, Shabbir Abbas, who joined the SP after stints in the Congress and BSP, has been declared the city president.
The SP state president had dissolved the Agra district and city executive committees of the party on June 2. Along with this, office-bearers and members from Agra included in the state executive and departments were also removed. The outgoing district president Srikrishna Verma and outgoing city president Wajid Nisar had been handling the organization’s work for the past six months. Party workers were also waiting for the announcement of the new executive committee. Wajid Nisar has been the SP city president five times.
Panchayat elections are scheduled for next year. To build a winning equation through the PDA formula, Udal Singh Kushwaha, an OBC resident of Kamla Nagar, has been made district president. He had contested the assembly election from Agra East in 2007 but lost. He has also previously served as the district general secretary and district vice-president in the SP.
Meanwhile, to cater to the Muslim vote bank, Shabbir Abbas, a resident of Vaibhav Nagar, Tajganj, has been appointed city president. After being with the Congress, he contested the assembly election from Agra North on a BSP ticket in 2022 but lost. He took SP membership last year. Both have been given the responsibility of strengthening the organization for the panchayat elections. Former district media in-charge Pawan Prajapati and other office-bearers distributed sweets.
Earlier this month, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, his wife Dimple Yadav, and MP Jayaprada had visited Fatehpur Sikri. Only select party leaders were present there during that visit. One of them was Shabbir Abbas.
he had told him. By saying this, he had already given hints at that time. When Shabbir Abbas was made city president on Friday, those hints became clear.
