Akhilesh Yadav Begins 2027 UP Poll Outreach From Rahul Gandhi’s Rae Bareli

LUCKNOW — Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav launched his party’s PDA Rath campaign from Rae Bareli on Thursday, September 24, taking the SP’s mobilisation for the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections into a more visible phase.

The choice of Rae Bareli drew immediate political attention because the Lok Sabha constituency is represented by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the SP’s alliance partner. The BJP said the location was deliberately chosen to demonstrate the Samajwadi Party’s political strength to Congress as the two parties prepare for negotiations over their electoral arrangement in Uttar Pradesh.

Yadav travelled in the specially prepared PDA Rath from the Bachhrawan area towards Rae Bareli and later addressed a public meeting at the Government Inter College ground. Reports said the journey took several hours as supporters gathered along the route.

The campaign is built around the SP’s PDA formulation — Pichhda (backward classes), Dalits and Alpsankhyak (minorities). The party has used the coalition as a central part of its political messaging ahead of the next Assembly election.

‘पीडीए रथ’ की पहली यात्रा में रायबरेली में बात इतने बड़े हार से स्वागत की नहीं है कि उसे क्रेन से उठाया जाए, बात अपनों से मिल रहे बेइंतहा प्यार-मोहब्बत की है।

रायबरेली की जनता और सभी कार्यकर्ताओं, पदाधिकारियों और नेताओं का हार्दिक धन्यवाद!

रायबरेली ने सुनिश्चित कर दिया है कि… pic.twitter.com/ISs2Mqh74G

— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) September 24, 2026

Yadav says SP-Congress alliance will continue

At Rae Bareli, Yadav said the SP would remain in alliance with Congress for the coming election.

“I have said it earlier also, and today once again I am saying that our alliance is very strong and we will work for the alliance,” Yadav said, according to Hindustan Times. He also said the alliance’s objective was to defeat the BJP.

Yadav also indicated that the eventual distribution of Assembly seats should be based on electoral viability rather than simply the number of seats each party seeks.

Addressing supporters, he said there would be an alliance but that the parties should focus on seats that could be won. The Indian Express reported his formulation as: “For us, it will not be about seats but about winnability — whoever can win a seat should get it.”

The issue is significant because the SP and Congress have yet to finalise their seat-sharing arrangement for the 2027 Assembly election. Their alliance performed together in the 2024 Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh, but negotiations for the Assembly contest are expected to be more complicated because the state has 403 constituencies.

Congress state president Ajay Rai had earlier said the party would seek a substantial number of seats, while SP leaders have indicated that the party would assess constituencies according to its organisational strength and prospects.

Why Rae Bareli matters

Rae Bareli is one of Congress’s longstanding political strongholds. Rahul Gandhi won the seat in the 2024 Lok Sabha election with 687,649 votes, defeating BJP candidate Dinesh Pratap Singh by 390,030 votes. Election Commission records list Gandhi as the elected member from Rae Bareli.

That history gave the SP’s decision to begin its PDA Rath programme there an additional political dimension.

The Indian Express reported that the launch brought the SP-Congress relationship into sharper focus as both parties move towards seat-sharing discussions. The SP had also begun organisational preparations in the Rae Bareli and Amethi parliamentary constituencies before the current campaign.

At the same time, the launch should not be described as the first election activity by the SP for 2027. The party had already begun broader “Mission 2027” preparations earlier in the year. The September 24 event marked the formal rollout of the PDA Rath as a major public mobilisation exercise.

BJP says SP is signalling its strength to Congress

The BJP quickly responded to the Rae Bareli campaign.

BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said the SP had intentionally selected Rahul Gandhi’s constituency to demonstrate its political strength to Congress and establish its position within the alliance.

Tripathi described the relationship between the SP and Congress as a struggle for political influence and suggested that Congress could similarly demonstrate its strength by beginning a campaign from areas associated with the Samajwadi Party.

The BJP spokesperson also criticised Yadav’s use of the campaign vehicle and said he should observe development works undertaken by the Uttar Pradesh government while travelling to Rae Bareli. Those comments were part of the BJP’s political response to the SP’s campaign and were not an independent assessment of the state government’s performance.

Uttar Pradesh minister Kapil Dev Aggarwal also criticised the PDA campaign, saying the SP’s politics focused on caste divisions. His comments were reported by ABP Live from an ANI interaction.

Yadav sharpens his campaign message

During the Rae Bareli programme, Yadav made a series of attacks on the BJP government and raised issues including social justice, reservation and alleged misuse of administrative power.

He also criticised the Election Commission over what he described as “vote theft” and claimed that the SP would have formed the Uttar Pradesh government in 2022 had such alleged irregularities not occurred. These are Yadav’s political allegations and were not presented as established findings in the reports reviewed for this article.

Yadav also set an organisational target for his party, asking workers to seek an increase of 27,000 votes in every constituency for the 2027 election.

His campaign rhetoric increasingly framed the coming contest around the SP’s PDA coalition and the BJP, while he continued to maintain that the alliance with Congress would remain in place.

The road to the 2027 election

The Rae Bareli launch places three issues at the centre of the SP’s early campaign: expanding the PDA coalition, strengthening the party organisation on the ground and negotiating the terms of its alliance with Congress.

For Congress, Rae Bareli remains a key constituency and a symbolic part of its political identity in Uttar Pradesh. For the SP, the campaign is an opportunity to take its PDA message beyond party offices and into constituencies where it wants to strengthen its grassroots network.

The BJP, meanwhile, has begun its own organisational preparations ahead of the Assembly contest, including changes and appointments across its organisational districts in Uttar Pradesh.

The final shape of the SP-Congress alliance, including the division of Assembly constituencies, remains unresolved. No seat-sharing agreement was confirmed in the sources reviewed for this report.

The next stage of the contest will therefore involve both parties building their organisations on the ground while continuing discussions over how they will contest the 2027 Uttar Pradesh election.