After vacillating between backing his brother or son for over two years and refraining from taking sides in the family dispute, Samajwadi party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav has finally decided to throw his weight behind son Akhilesh, the national president of the party.
Mulayam’s younger brother Shivpal Singh Yadav has already floated his own political outfit, the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia).
Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday made his presence felt in the Samajwadi Party, making assertions that are being interpreted as a sign that he has publicly thrown his weight behind his son Akhilesh after a whisper campaign about a rift between the two.
“You must meet me and share your problems in the party with me. Tell me if you are unhappy with anybody. I am here to solve your problem. I am the patron of the party,” Mulayam told Samajwadi Party workers in the presence of Akhilesh at a meeting at the party headquarters in Lucknow on the occasion of New Year.
The comments came exactly two years after Samajwadi Party members had elected Akhilesh as party president on January 1, 2017, and Mulayam as its patron, by a show of hands. They had removed Shivpal from all posts of the organisation.
Some Shivpal loyalists used to claim that Mulayam was dethroned by his son the way Mughal emperor Aurangzeb had usurped power from his father Shah Jahan. However, insiders always believed that it was a strategy chalked out by Mulayam to establish his son in the party and marginalise Shivpal.
On Tuesday, Mulayam played the affectionate father and unsparing guru. “I am very much here to take care of everything,” he said.
At one point, Mulayam scolded a section of party workers when they raised the slogan “Desh ka neta kaisa ho, Akhilesh Yadav jaisa ho” (What kind of a leader we need in the country, there should be one like Akhilesh Yadav).”
“You must not raise irrelevant slogans. Learn to listen to your leaders when they are speaking,” he said and turned to Akhilesh.
The father told the son: “You are not exercising your duties as SP chief honestly. You must take responsibilities and act like a mature leader.”
Mulayam Singh Yadav advised Akhilesh to carry out his responsibilities properly, emphasising, that in the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, the party had a threat from Bharatiya Janata Party which was much ahead in its preparations.
Then Mulayam told the party workers: “The SP is a young party and your national president is also young. You have to achieve fixed targets step by step.”
The SP patriarch also emphasised on the inclusion of women in the party and the need of discipline in the party cadre. Notably, this statement of the UP stalwart comes ahead of Akhilesh’s plan to form a mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) in Uttar Pradesh against the BJP.
On December 30, Samajwadi Party chief and former Chief Minister of UP, Akhilesh Yadav, had said that “there will be confluence of thoughts in UP very soon and people will know about it”.