After five years of split within the Samajwadi Party in 2017, Chacha Shivpal Singh Yadav and Bhatija Akhilesh Yadav are expected to bury the hatchet and join hands to take on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls. After several failed attempts, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav has finally been able to broker the patch-up which is likely to be announced on his birthday in November this year.
Political observers have been batting for this alliance if the mighty Bharatiya Janata Party were to be given any competition in the upcoming polls. On January 15, 2017, the then UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav wrested control of Samajwadi Party from his father Mulayam Singh Yadav and uncle Shivpal Yadav, putting an end to a four-month family feud which came to the fore in October, 2016. This happened a day after Mulayam Singh was forced to revoke Akhilesh Yadav’s expulsion, along with that of Akhilesh supporter Ram Gopal Yadav. Samajwadi Party members gathered in thousands in Lucknow’s Janeshwar Mishra Park for an emergency national executive meeting.
Ram Gopal Yadav had called the meeting to counter what he called unprecedented, unconstitutional actions of Mulayam Singh Yadav in which Akhilesh Yadav was expelled from the party. At the height of the political drama, the SP patron convened a meeting of the party’s parliamentary board at his Lucknow residence but no person of consequence turned up at the meeting.
The bitter dispute in the first family of the Samajwadi Party took a toll and in the March 2017 UP assembly polls, the party’s tally was reduced to 48 MLAs. In September 2018, Shivpal Yadav announced to float a new political party Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) after falling out with Akhilesh. Earlier, Shivpal had complained that during Akhilesh Yadav’s regime as chief minister, he felt neglected in the SP, which was founded by his elder brother Mulayam. Meanwhile, Akhilesh kept ruling out any alliance with his uncle all these years and did not even come together to fight the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
Earlier this year, hinting at a possible electoral tie-up with his estranged uncle’s Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, Akhilesh Yadav said that Shivpal Yadav would be given a cabinet berth if his party formed the government in the state. However, he made it clear that the Samajwadi Party would not enter into any electoral alliance with Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
To a question whether the SP would form an electoral alliance with his uncle Shivpal Yadav’s Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia), Akhilesh said, “We will adjust that party. Jaswantnagar is his (Shivpal Yadav’s) seat and the Samajwadi Party will not field any candidate from there.
Shivpal Yadav was elected from the Jaswantnagar assembly constituency