Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav bid a classy farewell by giving due respect to the members of the house and to the stature of the Prime Minister of the country and in the process of upholding the honour and sanctity of the house is a quality only found in the seasoned politicians of the past. A lot of us are shocked at such a statement made in this age of polluted and mudslinging politics. Probably, all the leaders who are losing relevance in their states want Modi to come back. They include Nitish, Mulayam, and AIADMK leaders. Moreover, Mulayam responded a day after his son was attacked, praised Modi for his ill will act against his son, nothing else! This man fought all his life against the right-wing ideology; he becoming a saint all of a sudden and that too after the attacks on his son, tells all. He created a flutter in the Lok Sabha when he said that he wished to see Narendra Modi back as the Prime Minister, a sentiment acknowledged by the BJP leader with folded hands. Mulayam Singh Yadav’s comment may not please his son Akhilesh Yadav, one of the main players in efforts to forge a grand opposition coalition to take on PM Modi and the BJP in the upcoming national election. Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh, in a jaw-dropping departure from the opposition chorus and his own party line during speeches, marked the last sitting of the current Lok Sabha before the national election. His supporters swore that it was all in humour, but his comments didn’t fail to raise the eyebrows.
The Yadav father and son have not been in the best of terms over the past two years, during which Akhilesh, 45, staged a coup and took over control of the party founded by his father. Despite the strain, Mulayam Singh chose to remain by his son’s side as his younger brother Shivpal Yadav broke away and set up a rebel outfit. Aparna Yadav, the younger daughter-in-law of Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, has said that there are speculations that she might join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which were triggered after her back-to-back meetings with Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Aparna and her husband Prateek Yadav, the younger son of Mulayam, first met Adityanath two days after he became the Chief Minister. However, then the couple was seen with the CM during his cow shelter visit in Lucknow. This bahu was the Samajwadi Party’s candidate from the Lucknow Cantonment constituency and lost the election to Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Rita Bahuguna Joshi. Aparna said that she was caught in the crossfire during the Yadav family feud or else she would have won. Before her, all others — Tej Pratap Singh Yadav, Dimple Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Dharmendra Yadav, Akshay Yadav, and Shivpal Yadav — began their political career generally through a by-poll from the family’s pocket borough seats. Mulayam and his entire family are in active politics of Uttar Pradesh. However, in the recent past, the two generations had got rift within.
On December 30, 2016, Mulayam Yadav expelled his son Akhilesh and his cousin Ram Gopal from the party for six years on the grounds of indiscipline, only to revoke the decision 24 hours later. Akhilesh, in response, stripped his father off the party presidency and instead named him the chief patron of the party following the national convention of the party on January 1, 2017. Mulayam termed the national convention as illegal and directly expelled his cousin, Ram Gopal Yadav, who had convened the national executive convention. However, the Election Commission of India ruled that Ram Gopal Yadav had the right to convene that executive convention, and reversed Mulayam’s order. Hence, Akhilesh Yadav officially became the new National Leader of the party, dumping his father aside.
Akhilesh is the son of Mulayam’s first wife; however, Prateek is from his second wife. Shivpal Yadav is the real brother of Mulayam Singh and Ram Gopal is the cousin of senior Yadav. Shivpal and Mulayam are on one side while Ram Gopal and Akhilesh on the other. Now comes the fight, it is just because everyone wants to hold power in the party. Shivpal and Mulayam claim that they had created the party so they should hold the power; on the other hand, Akhilesh being the CM wants to take decision on its own, as in spite of being the CM of UP, he was not able to take decisions by his own due to the compulsions by these people. So, within the party, there are two schools of thoughts, which are not matching. One wants another candidate to contest election while others want another group of candidates. Mulayam’s group believes that they can win the election by gundaraj and other things for which SP is known for while Akhilesh wants to change the image and wants to choose candidates with a clean image and the ones who will work for the development.
The fight started way back in June 2016 when Akhilesh Yadav scrapped off some cabinet ministers who were close to Mulayam Singh Yadav and appointed more capable ones. Mulayam Singh Yadav’s brother Shivpal Singh Yadav is also very close to Mulayam and wasn’t very happy with Akhilesh holding the CMs position. Shivpal’s distance from Akhilesh was seen several times when he criticised him in several press conferences. Soon, Akhilesh gained popularity because of his developmental policies and ignored his uncle and father’s intervention in his work. Mulayam too was seen speaking against his son in the press. This led to the formation of a rift between Akhilesh and his father.
Mulayam Singh Yadav is the founder of the Samajwadi Party. He served for three non-consecutive terms as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh from 1989 to 1991, 1993 to 1995, and 2003 to 2007 respectively and also served as the Minister of Defence of India from 1996 to 1998 in the United Front government. He currently serves as the Member of the Parliament in the Lok Sabha from Azamgarh, and this was his last speech. Groomed by the leaders such as Ram Manohar Lohia and Raj Narain, Yadav was first elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly in the Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh in 1967. Yadav served eight terms there. He first became a state minister in 1977. Later, in 1980, he became the President of the Lok Dal (People’s Party) in Uttar Pradesh, which became a part of the Janata Dal (People’s Party) afterward. In 1982, he was elected leader of the opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council and held that post until 1985. When the Lok Dal party split, Yadav launched the Krantikari Morcha party.
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