Samajwadi Party gets a Dimple on cheek with new' leader

Lucknow: The recent crisis in the Samajwadi Party may have thrown up innumerable ugly moments, but it has also seen the quiet rise of another formidable SP leader — Dimple Yadav, the reticent SP MP from Kannauj who is also the wife of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.

Dimple Yadav, who took over the responsibility of preserving her husband’s image during the recent family strife by managing his social media accounts, is now preparing for a bigger and more visible role in the party campaign.

People familiar with the matter say Ms Yadav will not only campaign independently but the entire SP campaign will be designed under her guidance.

Known as “bhabhi-ji” in party circles, the core team of Akhilesh Yadav now has free access to her, and she is kept informed of every move and decision in the party. She has started meeting select members of the team, though she has still not opened her doors to the media.

“She has convinced her husband for an alliance, and is helping him work out the details and even negotiate with leaders. Her political acumen is amazing and her skills are finally out in the open,” a Team Akhilesh member said. “She is proving to be one of our biggest assets after the chief minister.”

During the recent internal party upheavals, it was Ms Yadav who kept posting photographs of her husband with her and her children on social media. The idea was to project him as a family man in a situation that could have also presented him as a ruthless power-seeker.

People familiar with the matter say Ms Yadav convinced her husband to insist that Mulayam Singh would continue as his mentor.

The new SP posters that claim “Aapki cycle sada chalegi aapke naam se” and have bigger photographs of Mulayam Singh Yadav than Akhilesh Yadav were also her idea. A Yadav family member said the recent crisis in the family brought Ms Yadav out of the shadows.

“Akhilesh was under tremendous pressure and severe tension and Dimple knew that he could crack under the strain, so she decided to support him,” the family member said.

“Akhilesh trusts her blindly and seeks her advice on all key issues. Her support helped him tide over the crisis.”

It was Ms Yadav who prevented the father-son relationship from snapping even at a time when tensions touched a crescendo. She regularly sent over her children to meet their grandfather, and gradually convinced her husband to mend his ties with his father.