More trouble is brewing in the feuding first family of the Samajwadi Party as supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav has decided to give his son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Vikas Rath Yatra’s launch from lucknow on Thursday a skip. Party State president Shivpal Yadav too will not attend the function that has become a show of strength for Akhilesh.
Party sources said on Wednesday that the likely presence of the expelled SP leader Ram Gopal Yadav and five expelled MlCs on the occasion forced Mulayam to stay away from the event as he can’t be present at a place where the expelled leaders are seen rubbing shoulders with his son.
A party leader added the presence of Mulayam will be interpreted as erosion of his authority as Ram Gopal Yadav and the five members of ‘team Akhilesh’ were expelled from the party on the direction of the SP chief.
Rajya Sabha MP and vice-president of the SP, Kiranmoy Nanda, who arrived here on Wednesday along with Mulayam from Delhi, confirmed that ‘Netaji’ will not be present during the yatra flag-off.
“The rath yatra is about showcasing the achievements of the Government during the last nearly five years and it’s strictly an event covering the State of UP only, so there is no need for the national president of the party to be present in a State-level programme,” he said.
“Netaji flagged off the Mulayam Sandesh Yatra on September 10 to campaign for the party in view of the upcoming Assembly elections,” he added.
However, Nanda, a close confidant of both Mulayam and Akhilesh, said the rath yatra of the Chief Minister would be a ‘historic event in UP.’
Significantly, the Chief Minister’s camp has left no stone unturned to make the rath yatra a ‘historic’ event. It will be the first occasion for Akhilesh to demonstrate his strength and following among the people after the unfinished 50-day-long power struggle within the party from which several of his supporters were expelled.
Akhilesh will kick off the first phase of his poll campaign with the launch of the day-long rath yatra from la Martinière grounds.
The yatra will conclude at Shuklaganj town in Unnao district on the same day.
The Chief Minister’s cousin Abhishek Yadav who is chairman of the Etawah district panchayat is looking after the mobilisation of supporters from the district to lucknow, and a large number of them are expected to join the show.
Also, over 20,000 vehicles, mostly SUVs are expected to join the rath yatra from lucknow to Shuklaganj and the number of vehicles and people could swell further.
Akhilesh Yadav himself will travel by an Rs 5 crore-Mercedes Benz bus, remodelled as the ‘rath’.
Minister Rajendra Chaudhary and vice-chairman of the Janeshwar Mishra Trust said that several lakh supporters of Akhilesh are expected to participate in the rath yatra and thousands have already arrived in lucknow in buses.
“During the rath yatra the Chief Minister would address over a dozen whistle-stop meetings from lucknow to Shuklaganj and along the route of the yatra several dozen welcome gates have been put up where the common people will welcome and garland Akhilesh Yadav,” he said.
In the entire city, particularly the lohia path in Gomti Nagar and all along the lucknow-Kanpur Road till Unnao, thousands of hoardings and banners have been put up by the supporters of Akhilesh. The hoardings carry the photo of Akhilesh and his wife and MP Dimple Yadav and Mulayam and other youth leaders. However, the photos of Shivpal Yadav are conspicuous by their absence.
Among all this, Thursday will be a tough day for the people commuting on the lucknow-Kanpur road and passengers landing at Amausi airport.
To mark the launch of the rath yatra, Akhilesh’s supporters have decked lucknow up in red and green, the official colours of the ruling party.
The second phase of the yatra is likely to commence after the silver jubilee foundation day function on November 5. The second phase would cover the Bundelkhand region and cover Hamirpur, Jhansi and Mahoba districts. Akhilesh during a programme here on October 28 had announced that November 3 and 5 would be an extended Diwali festival for the party workers and supporters and termed it an ‘agni pariksha’ (acid test) for him and the party.