She came, she tended, she conquered.
Apart from office-bearers of the Cockroach Janta Party, the Jantar Mantar protests have seen another leader come of age: Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav, whose videos meeting injured protesters, sitting next to them offering succour and help, taking on the police and, in one striking case, taking care of a protester who had fainted have gone viral.
The 48-year-old has been evolving as a politician since her first election in 2009 from the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat, when the 30-year-old was seen as the quiet “bahu” content being led by her illustrious father-in-law Mulayam Singh Yadav and his heir apparent and her husband, Akhilesh Yadav. The fact that she lost that election was seen as another blot on her political ambitions.
So, few expected the demure Dimple, in her trademark saris and loosely tied hair, to take the lead for her party in the ongoing Delhi protests, which are shaping up to be historic and posing one of the biggest challenges to the 12-year-old Modi government.
“She is not just an MP now. She has become a leader,” says Pushpendra Saroj, the Kaushambi MP, who was with Dimple in the SP march held in solidarity with the protesters.
Party insiders say Dimple’s role was part of a plan, the call having been taken ahead of the CJP’s planned march to Parliament at the start of the Session on July 20. At a pre-Session meeting, it was decided that instead of Akhilesh, it would be Dimple who would be at the head of the party’s march in support of the protesters, first to Parliament House and later towards Jantar Mantar. Instead of Akhilesh, his cousin and Azamgarh MP Dharmendra Yadav would be by Dimple’s side.
However, what happened next, SP leaders admit, surprised them too. As police stopped the SP MPs and took them to the Parliament Street Police Station, the others advised Dimple to stay put in the cabin of the Station House Officer in case the situation went out of hand due to the crowd outside. “But Dimple ji decided to come out, and joined the sloganeering. She even tried to scale the barricades to interact with the protesting youths,” says an SP MP. “We had water bottles with us, and we offered that to the protesters, with Dimple ji giving it herself to those injured in the police lathicharge.”
It was again Dimple who insisted that the SP push on to meet the protesters, brushing away fears of police action or any fallout due to public anger with politicians. “The police officials present would not have been able to identify many of us (so as to protect us)… Still Dimple ji decided to speak to the youths,” the MP says.
It was the second time Dimple became the face of the SP’s presence at Jantar Mantar, having led a delegation to meet a fasting Sonam Wangchuk on July 16. On July 18, as police took Wangchuk away from the protest site to hospital, Dimple referred to the white sheets they held up to keep onlookers away as a “shroud”, saying “BJP folk” had come with it “as a coffin for the country”. “When peaceful voices are suppressed, the Constitution and democracy are also wounded… Suppressing the voices of people like Sonam Wangchuk is to suppress the soul of the nation… The BJP government can no longer tolerate even peaceful protests – this is tyranny,” Dimple tweeted.
Posting photos with injured protesters, the Mainpuri MP wrote on X: “Today, I joined the students’ protest… and boosted their morale. The Samajwadi Party is fully with the students. This is not NEET, it is CHEAT.” Dimple also drew a parallel to her own three children, saying she could empathise with what the students felt.
SP sources said Dimple has, in fact, been focusing increasingly on education and employment, along with women’s issues. The party’s young MPs such as Iqra Hasan of Kairana, Priya Saroj of Macchlishahr and Saroj of Kaushambi are always seen with her in Parliament.
An SP leader says that for more than a year, Dimple has led a team of young leaders in the party given the task of identifying students looking for support to continue studies or pursue a career. “She takes the final decision and then party MPs and MLAs provide every possible support to these youths,” says the leader.
Another MP says Dimple has suggested that the party build its campaign for the coming UP elections around the concerns raised at Jantar Mantar.
SP leaders recall that Dimple, who has been showing a more confident streak inside Parliament too, took the lead in demanding that the mic of her party’s young MP from Sambhal Zia Ur Rehman Barq be “switched on” as he spoke in the House about communal violence in his constituency.
In July last year, when women MPs of the NDA tried to put the SP in a spot by staging a demonstration when a Delhi-based cleric remarked against Dimple not covering her head and wearing a sari to a mosque visit, she turned their attack on its head by shooting back: “It would have been better had they (the NDA leaders) staged demonstrations and stood with the women of Manipur.”
An SP MP says that Dimple’s role in the Jantar Mantar protests reinforces her growing profile in the party. “We consider her our next-in-command in the Lok Sabha if Akhilesh ji is not present.”
Party leaders pinpoint the start of the change to Dimple’s election in a 2022 bypoll from the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat held by the veteran Mulayam. When she retained it in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it was a triumph both for the party and her. For the first time she ran a campaign parallel to Akhilesh’s across UP, especially for women candidates of the SP. Not only did she win by a margin of more than 2 lakh votes, but the SP also achieved the unexpected in sweeping 37 seats in UP, relegating the BJP to 33.
