Lucknow, Sept. 18: Champions of Urdu versus the aces of the freedom struggle. That’s the billing for the Uttar Pradesh poll campaign as the Samajwadi Party and Congress get into the thick of electioneering this week.

Mulayam Singh Yadav fired the first shot today, laying the foundation stone for the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Urdu University, a private institution in Rampur.

The Samajwadis say the Rs 200-crore private university was planned after the Congress blocked a bill to set up a state Urdu university.

Mulayam’s party colleague Amar Singh spelt out the message: the Congress is anti-Urdu while the Samajwadis are the lone defenders of the language.

The Congress counter is scheduled two days later, when Sonia Gandhi and son Rahul hold their first rally in Bareilly, 50 km from Rampur. They will try to win Muslim hearts by stressing Bareilly’s valiant role in the freedom struggle and, therefore, its bond with the party that spearheaded it.

She is likely to cite how Bareilly’s Muslim ruler had driven the British off for a year during the Sepoy Mutiny, and how it lived up to its reputation during a series of Congress-led struggles ending with the Quit India Movement.

But if the Congress can use historical motifs to woo the crucial Muslim vote, so can the Samajwadis.

Party leaders today held up minister Azam Khan, Rampur’s son-of-the-soil, as the “heir” to Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, who had led a so-called Muslim renaissance in the 1860s, trying to use Urdu as a means of consolidating the community’s identity.

“The Congress had never acknowledged the contribution of Sir Syed and ignored the importance of Urdu,” said Amar.

The Congress had last year opposed the university bill because it looked to make Azam Khan pro-chancellor for life. The governor finally refused to approve the bill.

The issue has provided the Samajwadis with ready ammunition. During the debates in the House, Azam Khan had dubbed state Congress chief Salman Khursheed as “another Salman (Rushdie)”.

The Samajwadis painted Khursheed, who runs a network of English-medium public schools in the country, as living proof of the Congress’s lack of interest in Urdu.

The Congress, already set back by its wishy-washy stand on the Vande Mataram controversy, is hoping to spring back with the help of another anniversary — the 150 years of the Sepoy Mutiny.

When news of the revolt reached Bareilly on May 14, 1857, its sepoys seized the treasury and the kotwali. Its ruler Khan Bahadur Khan formed his own government that lasted till May 7, 1858.

In her speech on Wednesday, Sonia is also likely to list the town’s Congress connection. The Mahatma paid it two visits during the Khilafat Movement; it hosted a Congress conference in 1936; and leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru had been detained in Bareilly jail during the 1942 movement.

Congress sources said Sonia might seek permission from the state to visit the historic jail on the eve of the rally.