By IANS,
Agra : The national executive of Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Samajwadi Party will meet in the Taj city, which the party considers lucky for its political fortunes, to deliberate on its strategy in the run-up for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his father and Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav along with several ministers have started arriving in the city, ahead of the two-day meet beginning Wednesday.
After the formation of the SP in October 1992, the Yadavs began their successful run in 1993 with their first meeting at the Grand Hotel in Agra, which resulted in Mulayam Singh Yadav becoming state chief minister. The same feat was repeated in 2003 and 2009.
In 2012, Akhilesh made it to the Lucknow “gaddi” after a meeting in Agra in 2011.
Will Agra prove lucky for the party for the fifth time to enable “Netaji” – as Mulayam Singh is called by his close associates – to become the prime minister of India, a dream that is being flaunted as “Lakshya 2014”? This question is being debated in political circles in Agra.
For the moment, it appears that the long shadow of the escalating communal tension across the state will naturally impact the party mood, say party leaders in Agra.
Agra region with 19 assembly seats is considered particularly important by the Samajwadi Party, which has to battle the concerted assault by the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party on the one hand, and on the other by Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, which sees Agra as the Dalit capital of north India with a major concentration of prosperous Dalits whose political aspirations are on the ascendancy.