Sir — As the feud within the ruling Samajwadi Party’s first family approached crisis point months before the Assembly election, patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, is thought to have favoured brother Shivpal Yadav over son Akhilesh Yadav so far. If the hara-kiri now underway within the party does not end in a compromise and culminates in a split, it has the potential to hand the BJP the biggest advantage it could have hoped for in the run-up the polls.