The Samajwadi Party has made disputed recruitment and reservation claims central to its campaign against Uttar Pradesh's BJP government ahead of the 2027 Assembly election. Its PDA reservation booklet alleges that backward and other marginalised communities were denied reserved posts. The Indian Express reported that party leaders planned to take the document to every Assembly constituency.
The campaign gained fresh visibility after OBC and Scheduled Caste teacher aspirants protested outside education minister Sandeep Singh's Lucknow residence on May 18. The newspaper linked their demonstration over the 69,000 assistant-teacher recruitment dispute with SP's effort to answer the BJP's longstanding allegation that earlier SP governments favoured Yadav candidates.
NDTV's May 21 account of the document reported Yadav's allegation concerning more than 11,514 reserved positions across 22 recruitment exercises over ten years. It said his booklet placed the 69,000-teacher exercise first and alleged irregularities affecting more than 7,933 posts there. These figures are the party's claims, not findings independently established by this report.
The exercises listed in NDTV's account extended beyond teaching to forest and wildlife guards, village panchayat officers, eye-testing officers, stenographers, revenue clerks and veterinary officers. Yadav also raised the use of the 'not found suitable' category. This gave the campaign a wider recruitment focus than the teacher protest alone.
Daily Excelsior reported that Yadav released the document at the party headquarters on May 20 and said it would be improved as more data was added. PDA refers to backward classes, Dalits and minorities. The publication was therefore presented as a continuing political exercise, not a completed statutory audit.
BJP ministers rejected the attack. According to The Indian Express, Swatantra Dev Singh claimed nearly nine lakh recruitments under Yogi Adityanath were transparent and merit-based, while Asim Arun invoked alleged irregularities during SP rule. Both sides were contesting their recruitment records; neither party's asserted totals settle the individual reservation disputes.
