Lucknow: The ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh is heading towards a fresh crisis with sharp differences emerging between chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on one side and party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and his brother Shivpal on the other.
On Monday, the contentious issue of ticket distribution again exposed the rift in the SP with state party chief Shivpal Yadav attacking chief minister Akhilesh Yadav over his reported parallel list of candidates which he submitted to his father on Sunday.
A miffed Shivpal Yadav said that the names of 175 candidates have already been finalised. The list of candidates for 175 seats by Shivpal Yadav has obviously not gone down well with Akhilesh who, according to party insiders, prepared his own list of candidates for all the 403 UP Assembly seats and sent it to his father.
His list doesn’t include the names of about 40 senior leaders who are perceived to be close to his uncle Shivpal.
When asked about Akhilesh Yadav’s list, Shivpal Yadav told this correspondent on Monday, “The final decision will be taken by the party president and winnability will be the deciding factor”.
Apart from the list of candidates, the two camps are also in disagreement over an alliance with the Congress for the forthcoming Assembly polls.
While Akhilesh Yadav has been aggressively pushing for the alliance so that the SP “can get more than 300 seats”, party president Mulayam Singh Yadav on Sunday night told some candidates that there would be no alliance and that they should start working in their constituencies.
Some of the candidates who met him included those who have been given party tickets in seats held by the Congress. “He almost made it clear that there would be no alliance and the party will contest all 403 seats,” a candidate said.
In another jolt to the chief minister, Mulayam Singh Yadav on Sunday appointed controversial minister Gayatri Prajapati as the party’s national secretary. Ms Prajapati is said to be close to Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger son Prateek Yadav and is, therefore, disliked by the Akhilesh camp.
These decisions follow detailed deliberations Mulayam Singh Yadav had with party general secretary Amar Singh and state president Shivpal Yadav on Saturday. Prof. Ram Gopal Yadav and Akhilesh Yadav were not a part of these deliberations.
Akhilesh Yadav, in fact, met first-time MLAs at his residence on Saturday and promised to give them party tickets.
Akhilesh Yadav is now said to embarking on his campaign without informing the party of his route. “He will be campaigning on seats where he has candidates of his choice,” said an aide, while a senior party office bearer said that they had no information of the chief minister’s programme.
The chief minister has not been visiting the party office lately and neither has Mr Shivpal Yadav met him for the past one month.
“No one knows what is happening and the sense of unease in the party is growing. The candidates are in dilemma because they do not know what to do”, said a party functionary.
A senior minister in the Akhilesh government admitted that the crisis in the party is raising its head again. “A split seems imminent — we do not know whether it will happen before elections of after”, he added.
Shivpal Yadav had earlier been sacked by the chief minister on charges of corruption but was later taken back into the state Cabinet.
