Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav was conspicuous by his absence in the roza Iftar party thrown by his son and the party president Akhilesh Yadav here on Monday. Shivpal Yadav, the warring uncle of the SP president also skipped the event and was busy in his home town Etawah. Azam Khan, the muslim mascot of the Samajwadi Party also preferred to stay away from the Roza iftar party.
Three months later in October the Samajwadi party will celebrate its silver jubilee and this is for the first time in the history of the Samajwadi party that Mulayam Singh Yadav, the founder of the party skipped the Roza Iftar party. It’s an important event in the calendar of the Samajwadi party, a major claimant on the muslim vote bank in UP.
Mulayam Singh Yadav arrived here from Delhi on Monday morning and it was widely expected that he will attend the party but he failed to turn up at the venue, the state office of the Samajwadi party. None in the Samajwadi party offered the reason for the absence of the party’s founder from an important event like Roza Iftar party. Repeated queries by the media from the Party president Akhilesh Yadav, party spokesman Rajendra Chowdhary and other senior leaders elicited no response.
The absence of the party’s patriarch, Shivpal Yadav and other senior leaders of the party from the iftar party have again exposed the fault lines within the first family of the Samajwadi Party. Earlier this month the party sources had indicated that Muayam Singh Yadav has worked out a power sharing formula to bring his elder brother Shivpal Yadav on board and end the dispute between the uncle and nephew—Akhilesh Yadav. The absence of the head of the first family from the Iftar party has confirmed that there is no peace either in the party or the first family of the party and the situation remains where it was before the state assembly elections in March last.
Shivpal Yadav has already announced to float new political outfit Samajwadi secular front on July 6. Shivpal Yadav had also claimed that he had the blessings of Mulayam Singh Yadav for the new political venture. Mulayam Singh Yadav has so far not endorsed the claim of Shivpal Yadav and said he would talk to shivpal Yadav. The deliberations of talks between the two brothers are not in the public domain.
Deepak Mishra, a close aide of Shivpal Yadav and former spokesman of the party said here on Monday that the date of floating the Samajwadi Secular front has been deferred by several months and the front is likely to float in October. He said from July shivpal Yadav would embark on statewide tour to mobalise the support for the front and a big rally will be organized here October 12, the death anniversary of socialist ideologue Ram Manohar lohia.