India, Sept. 17 -- Opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav is expected to begin a statewide campaign in the last week of October ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. A customised campaign bus arrived at the SP office in Lucknow on Wednesday for the proposed 'PDA Rath Yatra' themed around the party's formula of consolidating backward, Dalit, and Muslim, or pichhda, Dalit and alpsankhyak voters.

The formula helped SP register its best performance, bagging 37 of 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in the 2024 national polls. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s seats in the state fell from 62 in 2019 to 33, as the party's overall tally dropped below the majority mark in Parliament for the first time since 20...