With Samajwadi Party facing anger from party MLAs over the statement of Yashwant Sinha calling Mulayam Singh Yadav an “ISI agent, party chief Akhilesh Yadav resorted to dinner diplomacy on the eve of the polling for the Presidential election.
Mohammed Tahir, SP MLA from Isauli-Sultanpur, hosted the dinner and all 111 MLAs of the party were directed to attend the dinner.
Yashwant Sinha is the opposition candidate in the presidential election. The dinner is an attempt to win over the SP MLAs not happy with the party’s decision to support the joint opposition candidate Yashwant Sinha.
SP MLAs, particularly Muslim MLAs are unhappy with Yashwant Sinha for his statement calling SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav “an ISI agent”’. SP ally Suheldev Bhartiya Samajwadi Party (SBSP) has already broken ranks with the opposition and its chief Om Prakash Rajbhar has announced to vote for National Democratic Alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu.
Shivpal Yadav, SP MLA and uncle of Akhilesh Yadav, has also announced to support Droupadi Murmu. On Saturday, he had shot off a letter to Akhilesh Yadav, asking him to reconsider SP’s support to Yashwant Sinha as the opposition presidential candidate had called Mulayam Singh Yadav an ISI agent.
The statement of Yashwant Sinha about Mulayam Singh Yadav threatened to snowball into a major controversy on the eve of the polling for the presidential elections, thus forcing the SP chief to resort to dinner diplomacy to pacify his party MLAs.