LUCKNOW, Sept. 12 -- In Uttar Pradesh politics, few abbreviations have undergone as many political mutations as the three-letter PDA. What began as Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's creation for Pichhda, Dalit, Alpsankhyak has gradually acquired multiple meanings, interpretations and political avatars.

Its original political genes have been transformed beyond recognition several times in UP's electoral laboratory, depending on the convenience of its political 'pathologists'. At times, the PDA has displayed an almost octopus-like flexibility-changing shape, extending its tentacles towards newer social groups and adapting itself to the political requirements of the moment.

The formulation assumed considerable political significance i...