With the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) (PSPL) president Shivpal Singh Yadav refusing to invite his elder brother and mentor Mulayam Singh Yadav to his party’s debut rally here on Sunday, the divide in the Yadav clan of Etawah is complete.
The PSPL said no formal invitation had been sent to Mulayam Singh Yadav but he was welcome to attend the rally if he desired.
None from the first family of Samajwadi Party except Aparna Yadav, the younger daughter-in-law of Mulayam, is expected to attend the rally.
“Whether Netaji (Mulayam Singh Yadav) attends the rally or not is no longer an issue for the PSPL,” Shivpal Yadav said here on Saturday.
Ever since his feud with nephew Akhilesh Yadav and removal of Mulayam Singh Yadav from the post of national president of Samajwadi Party in January this year, Shivpal Yadav’s refrain has been that “he is fighting for the restoration of the honour of Netaji”.
The chemistry between the two brothers seems to have radically changed after Shivpal launched his political party. Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia), which is organising its debut ‘Janakrosh Rally’ at Ramabai Ambedkar ground in the state capital on Sunday.
The PSPL claimed that three lakh people were expected to the rally.
Presence of Mulayam Singh Yadav at a big rally of the SP at Firozabad on Friday and his appeal to the local people to ensure success of the Samajwadi Party in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections proved to be the last straw and Shivpal decided against inviting the patriarch to the PSPL rally on Sunday.
Mulayam Singh Yadav had also appealed to the party cadre to sink all differences and work unitedly for the success of the Samajwadi Party candidate in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Shivpal Yadav is also expected to contest the next Lok Sabha election from Firozabad, presently represented in the Lok Sabha by his nephew Akshay Yadav who is the son of SP general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav.
To woo Mulayam Singh Yadav, Shivpal had celebrated his elder brother’s birthday at Saifai in Etawah district on a grand scale on November 22. However, Mulayam had skipped the programme. Sources in the PSPL said this incident sowed the seeds of discord between the two brothers.
Mulayam Singh Yadav, soon after the inauguration of PSPL office at a government bungalow on Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg in October, had once paid a surprise visit to the office of his younger brother’s party.
The PSPL is fast emerging as a haven for the Samajwadi Party dissidents and all those discarded by Akhilesh Yadav after he took over as national president of the SP in January this year. The PSPL will also make an issue of the alleged humiliation of Shivpal Yadav by his nephew Akhilesh.
Shivpal is himself supervising the preparations for the rally and party leaders in all districts have been given specific targets to mobilise people for the rally.
Shivpal Yadav said the rally had been organised to focus the attention of the masses on the anti-people policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh. The PSPL chief said besides inflation, demonetisation of high currency notes and Goods and Services Tax had aggravated the woes of small traders, artisans and the common man. He said the national convention of the PSPL would soon be convened in Lucknow.
Though the PSPL has been claiming that it is a mainstream secular political party, the BJP-led Yogi Adityanath government, as a ‘goodwill gesture’, has exempted all buses and other vehicles coming to Lucknow from different parts of the state for the PSPL rally, from toll tax.
All the streets of Lucknow are dotted with unauthorised hoardings put up by the PSPL supporters and Lucknow Nagar Nigam has decided to ignore them.