A LITTLE over a month after its Madhya Pradesh election campaign ended in a whimper, barring its war of words with INDIA ally Congress, the Samajwadi Party (SP) has dissolved its entire state unit.

While all the district units now stand disbanded, and the 10 Lok Sabha in-charges have been removed, most SP leaders welcomed the move, attributing the party’s dismal show in the elections to poor ticket distribution and calling for fresh faces.

The SP had fielded 72 candidates, for the 230-member Assembly, of whom none won. Despite party president Akhilesh Yadav leading the campaign, the SP’s overall vote share was just 0.43%.

SP national spokesperson Yash Bhartiya said the unit under state president Ramayan Singh had been dissolved on the instructions of Akhilesh.

A majority of the SP leaders said the move was needed to infuse the party with “young and clean faces”, and that there was anger in the ranks over both the candidate selection and the mishandling of the dispute with Congress over seat-sharing.

Bhopal-based SP leader Shamshul Hasan said: “At the crux of the issue is the fact that the ticket distribution was very bad. So an organisational overhaul was needed.”

Hasan also alleged that some SP candidates had “an informal tie-up with the BJP”, making the rejig essential. “There was talk that they did not perform well on purpose. We had to clean up the house before contesting the Lok Sabha elections.”

On the failed talks with the Congress, Hasan said: “Yes, Kamal Nath made comments (against Akhilesh) which angered our party workers. But on the ground, it should have been managed better. I was part of the talks on seat sharing and we decided to coordinate on three seats, which never materialised.”

Ramnarayan Sakarwar, who was dropped after being given the SP ticket from Dimani, said it had left a bad taste. “Our cadre were very angry and hence we ended up with the worst vote share. I raised this recently with the top leaders.”

A senior leader from Tikamgarh said the SP had gone in for a revamp like other parties, to infuse “fresh blood”. “It is routine to do this. There should be focus on youngsters and women in the coming days.”

A Damoh-based leader said the SP campaign suffered from poor organisation on the ground, as well as lack of resources for public outreach. “Even though Akhilesh did rallies, the other big leaders were not present, though this could have helped in areas where we were weak. The road ahead is to work on setting up a robust organisation.”

During the campaign, while Akhilesh had repeatedly attacked the Congress saying there was no difference between it and the BJP when it came to principles or programmes, the Congress had kept it hanging on seat-sharing.

The Congress had also questioned the SP decision to enter the MP poll fray given its virtual non-presence in the state.