UP Election 2022: PM taunts, Akhilesh flaunts 'laal topi' - What lies beneath the SP red cap

Red alert has officially been sounded in UP election campaign.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Laal Topi" taunt triggered a song retort by the Samajwadi Party.

PM calls the "Laal Topi" red alert, SP says it's an emotion and revolution.

Red caps are SP's identity.

It's leaders and workers have long flaunted their "laal topis".

But the "laal topi" has also seen ups and downs in its political journey.

It's called the Lohia cap by the SP workers, though SP's ideological mentor Ram Manohar Lohia never donned it.

In fact, Lohia even banned the red cap for a while when it came to notice some SP workers were indulging in criminal and petty activities in its garb.

SP patriarch Mulayam Singh continued the red cap tradition but seemed to ditch it along the way...

The cap again found its pride of place in the SP imagination and its workers' heads after Akhilesh Yadav took over the party reins.

He even gave the rustic, khadi cap a sporty touch after he became chief minister in 2012.

The new cap has a circular emblem of the Samajwadi Party in front.

It has now become a big political and emotional statement for the SP workers and leaders.

In 2017, after the SP scored a big win in two Lok Sabha bypolls in Phulpur and Gorakhpur, SP MPs, led by Mulayam Singh Yadav wore red caps to Parliament to make a grand political statement on the win.

Mulayam was seen donning the lal topi after a long time on that day and SP contingent became star attraction in the House.

This is not the first time the BJP has targeted the SP topi. Earlier CM Yogi Adityanath had taunted SP MLAs for wearing red caps inside the Assembly. He had also called for finishing the red caps from Uttar Pradesh.

Political taunts apart, for SP, the red cap remains an emotion and a revolution.