When education becomes a battleground and communalism the weapon of choice, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav says the Bharatiya Janata Party will stop at nothing. On Wednesday, 19 August 2026, the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister fired a sharp broadside at the BJP, charging that opposition to education is the party's core instinct — and that adding a communal angle to any issue gives them licence to go to any extreme.

Posting in Hindi, Yadav wrote: 'भाजपाइयों के लिए मुख्य बात शिक्षा के विरोध की है और उसमें अगर साम्प्रदायिकता का कोण जुड़ जाए तो वो कुछ भी कर गुज़र सकते हैं।' In plain English: 'For BJP people, the main thing is opposition to education, and if a communal angle gets added to it, they can go to any lengths.'

SP's long-running charge: ideology over access

The accusation is not new, but its sharpness is deliberate. The Samajwadi Party has consistently positioned itself as the defender of secular, inclusive education in Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state and the prize both parties have fought over through successive election cycles. Yadav's phrasing — 'kuch bhi kar guzar sakte hain' (they can do anything) — frames the BJP not merely as ideologically opposed to equitable schooling, but as capable of unchecked action when communal sentiment is in play.

The backdrop matters. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, approved by the central government, triggered sustained opposition claims that curriculum revisions carried ideological bias, sidelining minority perspectives and rewriting historical narratives. Critics argued the changes prioritised majoritarian framing over access and equity — precisely the terrain Yadav is contesting here.

A rivalry that keeps education politically charged

In Uttar Pradesh, education policy has rarely been a neutral subject. SP and BJP have traded accusations over madrasa regulation, school textbook content, language policy, and university appointments for years. Yadav's post lands in that established pattern — but the compressed, two-clause formulation gives it a prosecutorial edge: opposition to education first, communalism as the accelerant second.

BJP spokespersons have not yet responded publicly to the specific remark. Any reply is likely to reframe the debate around infrastructure investment, school construction numbers, or midday meal reach — the metrics the ruling party typically deploys to contest the 'anti-education' charge.

The politics of the classroom in India's largest state are never really about the classroom alone. When the country's most watched political rivalry frames learning itself as a site of communal contest, every parent, every student, every teacher becomes a stakeholder in what gets said next.