Lucknow: Samajwadi patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav seems all set to give a new twist to the on-going family war in the Yadav clan and the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh. Mr Yadav will be leading a march with his younger brother Shivpal Yadav in Etawah on Independence Day that will culminate in a rally. This will be Mr Yadav’s first interaction with the people after the assembly elections where the Samajwadi Party was decimated to a great extent.
The rally is also significant since it is taking place at a time when there is an exodus from the Samajwadi Party. Five SP MLCs namely, yeshwant Singh, Bhukkal Nawab, Ambica Chaudhary, Sarojini Agarwal and Ashok Bajpai, have already resigned.
All of them have stated that they were feeling ‘stifled’ in the party after the manner in which Mr mulaaym Singh Yadav was sidelined.
SP’s strongest ally, Raghuraj Pratap Singh a.k.a. Raja Bhaiyya has also distanced himself from the party and Yeshwant Singh, who resigned last month, is an acolyte of Raja Bhaiyya. Sources said that some more of his supporters in the SP were likely to quit in the coming days. The exodus from SP made Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav remove four Akhilesh loyalists from the Lohia Trust that he heads and there are indications that he may give an important position to Mr Shivpal Yadav in the trust. Moreover, talks of an alliance between Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mr Sharad Yadav and Mr Lalu Yadav—all of whom are in a state of political wilderness—has been gaining ground and Mr Shivpal Yadav has been working towards consolidation of like-minded forces. The Independence Day rally, in these circumstances, could be a tool to mobilize Samajwadi cadres (Mulayam faction) and lift them out of the realms of despair.
