Within hours of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav reiterating his resentment over the merger with gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s party, the Samajwadi Party on Saturday called off the merger with Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED). The QED’s merger with the SP had evoked much criticism.
The SP also decided on reinduction of Secondary Education Minister Balram Yadav, who was sacked by Akhilesh apparently for facilitating the merger.
Earlier, as Akhilesh minced no words in saying Ansari will not be welcome in the SP, his party’s parliamentary board met here to decide on revoking the merger besides reinducting Balram.
“Mukhtar Ansari will not be welcome in the party. We don’t want such people in the party,” Akhilesh said during a programme organised by a news channel here, publicly air his displeasure over on the merger with Ansari’s QED.
“There will be no merger of Qaumi Ekta Dal in the Samajwadi Party... This has been decided at the parliamentary board meeting,” SP national general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav told newspersons after the meeting of the party’s highest policy-making body.
Akhilesh had taken a similar tough stand on the inclusion of mafia-turned-politician DP Yadav before the 2012 elections.
The announcement of the merger on June 21 by Cabinet Minister Shivpal Yadav, who is brother of Akhilesh’s father and party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, had led the Chief Minister to say that he didn’t take the decision.
Akhilesh had earlier too expressed his unhappiness over the merger with QED, as it came ahead of next year’s Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls. “If party workers perform their responsibilities, then there will be no need of another party.”
Besides sacking Balram, he is also understood to have been upset with prisons minister Balwant Ramoowalia, who had reportedly ordered Ansari’s transfer from Agra prison to lucknow jail. Ansari was lodged in Agra jail in connection with killing of BJP MlA Krishnanand Rai in 2005.
Akhilesh had, however, later described the merger as an “internal matter” of the party and said he had no displeasure over it.
By merging QED, the SP was hopeful of attracting the Muslim vote bank in eastern Uttar Pradesh especially in Ghazipur, Mau and Varanasi.