Akhilesh Yadav Calling STF A 'Special Thakur Force' Might Backfire In 2027 UP Elections

Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav's recent remarks on the Special Task Force (STF) have started gaining casteist fervour, enough to repel Rajputs, who have been voting for the SP.

In an attack on Uttar Pradesh (UP) Police over Mangesh Yadav's encounter, Yadav said there is a buzz that STF is not a Special Task Force, but instead a Special Thakur Force. Thakurs are also known as Rajputs.

This might have been Yadav's attempt to create a caste divide between Yadavs and Rajputs and reap political benefits from this polarisation.

Simultaneously, Yadav might also be attacking UP Chief Minister Adityanath as the latter was a Rajput by caste before taking renunciation.

However, these attacks seem to be ironic because Rajputs are known to have voted for the SP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, helping it win 37 of 80 seats in UP, outperforming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Remember, there was a buzz of Rajput ire against the BJP in western UP? It cost BJP seats in Muzaffarnagar, Kairana and Saharanpur.

Even 'boti-boti' infamy Imran Masood, who won on the SP-ally Congress ticket in Saharanpur, accepted that Rajputs supported him in the elections.

Now, let's move eastward and look at Faizabad (Ayodhya is a part of it). Here, the BJP fielded a Rajput candidate Lallu Singh, who is also a Suryavanshi like Lord Ram.

However, Singh lost to SP's Dalit candidate Awadhesh Prasad. The loss was remarkable because it came a few months after the inauguration of Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir in Ayodhya.

This means that even a Rajput candidate could not gain the complete support of the Rajput community. There were certain complaints about a lack of representation of Rajputs in the Ram Mandir Trust Board.

Also, these were not the only elections when the Rajputs voted for the SP. They were once the largest voter base of the SP and continue to form a substantial vote bank even today.

Thus, it appears that Yadav has realised that his remarks about calling STF a Special Thakur Force might irk the Rajput community.

Instead of reiterating these remarks, Yadav gave a new full form to the STF yesterday (18 September) and called it 'Sareaam Thoko Force' (a force that kills in broad daylight).

However, he continued his casteist undertone by claiming that those who form 10 per cent of the population occupy 90 per cent of positions in the STF.

He claimed that of 21, there are only two STF officers coming from 'PDA' (Backward, Dalit, Tribal and Minorities) backgrounds, despite forming 90 per cent of the population.

"There is a specific purpose behind the use of this force, due to which such deployment has been done. It is by the powerful, for the fulfillment of the objectives of the powerful but against the weak," he said.

Yadav believes that the same PDA pitch that helped SP to become the third-largest party in the country in the Lok Sabha elections can help him win the 2027 UP assembly elections.

However, political commentator Amit Yadav explains that this strategy might not work for the SP because OBCs and Dalits will not vote together and the SP will also need the support of the upper castes.

He believes that if the SP continues to alienate the upper castes, especially Rajputs with such comments, then the upper castes will consolidate behind the BJP in the 2027 elections.