What could be seen as a political strategy the Samajwadi Party has removed Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s images from party’s newly launched posters giving an indication that Mulayam Singh Yadav would be sole poll campaigner in 2014 lok Sabha election.
The newly installed posters in Uttar Pradesh show only Mulayam with the slogan - ‘Man se Mulayam, Aur Irada loha Hai’ - but have no reference of the party’s leadership and governance in the State that has witnessed series of communal violence while he is at the helm of it. Such hoardings are part of the theme song of Samajwadi Party campaign. The party has bought the rights to Billy Joel's "We didn't Start the Fire" and adapted the song into a promotion of Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Bollywood playback singer Javed Ali will sing the song - Man se hai Mulayam aur Irade loha hai. The party has also roped in Bollywood composer Nikhil Kamath, of the Nikhil-Vinay duo, to work on other songs for the campaign. The lyrics have been written by Mulayam's teacher Udai Pratap Singh. A former Rajya Sabha MP, Udai Pratap is chairman of the UP Hindi Sansthan and has been given a cabinet minister's status by Akhilesh's government.
Akhilesh Yadav-led SP Government is facing flak from all sides for its mishandling of the Muzaffarnagar riots and hooliganism has been on the rise ever since the party stormed into power in 2012. Communal clashes have been on record high during Akhilesh’s one and a half year-rule. This probably is the only reason why Mulayam has resorted to avoid Akhilesh’s image from the party’s posters to distance him from his son’s failure and an effort to minimise the loss of voters’ trust in the general election.
BJP spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said here that Mulayam Singh knows that hos son has failed on all accounts and in the past had time and again criticized the governing style of Akhilesh Yadav. The way Mulayam had asked ministers to perform shows the performance of the government is not upto the mark. "Recently, Mulayam Singh Yadav had even said that some state ministers were not given work by their senior ministers. Chief Minister should have intervened. This too shows that Mulayam was not happy with Akhilesh’s work,’ Pathak said.