[25][26] Created just months before the Babri Masjid demolition, the party rose to power by pursuing secular politics.

The support of its key voters, Other Backward Classes and Muslims helped the party become a major political force in Uttar Pradesh.

The party have contested Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections around the country, but by far the bulk of its victories have been in Uttar Pradesh.

In the 2012 legislative assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh, SP registered a landslide victory with a clear majority in the house, thus enabling it to form a government in the state.

The major loss of Samajwadi Party was attributed to several factors, most notably being corruption, several political controversies, deteriorating law and order, and insensitive comments on rape as well as anti-women views.

[30] The Samajwadi Party provided outside support to the United Progressive Alliance government up to the fourteenth general election.

It contested the 2009 general election in alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Janshakti Party of Bihar.

[31] In April 2014, the Save Indian Family Foundation encouraged voters to support the Samajwadi Party or vote None of the above because they had said they opposed the alleged misuse of gender bias laws.