Lucknow: Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav has gently reminded his son Akhilesh of an unfulfilled “promise”. And the subtle attack presents a bigger picture of the feud within the Yadav family.
“It is a fact that Akhilesh Yadav had promised to return the post of party president to me after three months,” Mulayam said at a press conference on May 11.
“Why don’t those in the media ask Akhilesh why he is not keeping his words,” he said but quickly added that he was not hungry for the top post in the party he had formed and nurtured.
Former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had taken over a SP’s national president in a coup against his father, weeks ahead of the assembly polls in the state and amid a bitter power struggle with his uncle Shivpal Yadav.
Akhilesh was ousted from power as the BJP swept the polls and many in the SP believe that the family feud was one of the main reasons for the party’s drubbing.
After taking charge of the SP, Akhilesh had purportedly promised to “gift” UP to his father besides returning the president’s post.
Mulayam, who sided with his brother Shivpal, is, apparently, yet to mend fences with his son. And he is also not giving up hopes of leading the party once more.
The senior leader was in Agra to attend the marriage anniversary of Kshama Jain, a local corporator, who named as the party candidate from Agra South constituency when Shivpal Yadav was state president of SP. A few days later, Akhilesh Yadav left the seat to Congress after a pre-poll alliance between the two parties despite opposition from Mulayam. The BJP won the seat.
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The once-powerful regional satrap, however, side-stepped queries on a ‘secular front’ proposed by Shivpal.
Mulayam spoke on a range of issues including killing of security personnel on the border with Pakistan and the EVM controversy.
He expressed reservations about electronic voting machine (EVM) and urged the Prime Minister to discourage its use in elections as most of the political parties were questioning it.
“Japan is the nation that manufactures these EVMs, but itself goes to polls with ballot papers,” he said.
“There are apprehensions that EVMs could be manipulated. Majority of voters are puzzled as to where they voted and where their vote went finally.”
However, the former chief minister took a pragmatic view when asked about the performance of new chief minister Yogi Adityanath.
“At least six months’ time should be given to any government to perform and their work should be assessed only after that,” he stated.
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