The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday, 25 September 2026, claimed that Rahul Gandhi, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, is growing uneasy as Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav launches a campaign trail through Raebareli — Gandhi's own Lok Sabha constituency — ahead of the 2027 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. The BJP's remarks came as Akhilesh kicked off his PDA (Pichhada, Dalit, and Alpsankhyak) Rath Yatra on 24 September, a move that has trained a spotlight on the fragile ties between the two key INDIA bloc allies.

What BJP Said

BJP MP Ravi Kishan took a sharp dig at both the SP and the Congress, saying the Rath Yatra could originate from anywhere — even from someone's home — but argued that the real story was the SP eating into the Congress's residual support base in Uttar Pradesh. 'The Rath can start from anywhere, even from someone's home, but everyone feels that Rahul Gandhi ji has also become uneasy because Akhilesh Yadav ji is making inroads into whatever little Congress vote bank remains. Now, look at their politics. Only they (SP and Congress) and God know what they are doing,' Kishan said.

Kishan went further, dismissing any concern about the Rath Yatra's trajectory: 'If their Rath travels all the way to Pakistan, it does not matter to us.' He maintained that the BJP's sole focus is on winning every seat in Purvanchal and consolidating gains in constituencies where the party is comparatively weaker.

SP's Counter: 'No Place Belongs to Anyone Permanently'

SP MP Awadhesh Prasad responded by dismissing any notion of permanent political ownership over constituencies. 'No place belongs to anyone permanently. It is the grace of the people,' he said. Prasad described the Raebareli Rath Yatra as a response to what the SP characterises as 'injustice and atrocities' in the region, and noted that despite unfavourable weather and no special preparations, a large crowd turned out — a detail he said shook the confidence of BJP supporters.

The PDA Coalition Play

Akhilesh's Rath Yatra, conducted in a specially designed bus, is explicitly aimed at consolidating the SP's PDA social coalition — an alliance of backward classes, Dalits, and minorities — before the February 2027 Assembly polls. The choice of Raebareli as the starting point is widely read as a deliberate political signal: the constituency was held by Gandhi in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, making the SP's foray there a pointed assertion of independent electoral ambition.

Strains Within the INDIA Bloc

The decision has brought underlying tensions within the opposition alliance into the open. The SP and the Congress are formal INDIA bloc partners at the national level, but in Uttar Pradesh — the state that sends the largest contingent to the Lok Sabha — both parties are competing for overlapping voter segments, including minorities and OBC communities. Notably, the SP ran on its own in several seats during recent by-elections in the state, signalling that the alliance arithmetic remains unsettled ahead of 2027. This is not the first time Akhilesh has moved to consolidate constituencies that Congress has historically claimed; analysts note a pattern of the SP steadily narrowing the Congress's footprint in the state over successive election cycles.