Amid the ongoing power tussle in the ruling family of Uttar Pradesh, Samajawdi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav today asserted that there was "no dispute" in the party.
Mulayam along with Shivpal Yadav this morning met party workers at the SP headquarters here.
When asked about the ongoing tussle within the family and party, Mulayam said, "Party ke andar koi vivaad nahi hai toh samjhauta kaisa?" ("There is no dispute in the party, so the question of compromise does not arise"), Mulayam said before getting in the car.).
In a symbolic attestation of his authority over the Mulayam tormed the party headquarters in Lucknow and sat on the national president’s office for nearly 10 minutes before leaving for Delhi to meet Election Commission.
Mulayam reached the party office with his brother Shivpal Yadav before both left for the airport.
He will meet the Election Commission in Delhi on Monday to claim the “cycle” symbol of the party.
The nameplates of Mulayam Singh Yadav, "national president", and Shivpal Singh Yadav, cabinet minister were later restored at the party headquarters.
On reports that Mulayam got his room locked at the party office and put up his and Shivpal's name plates, SP state chief (Akhilesh faction) Naresh Uttam said, "their name plates were never removed".
To another question, he said," Akhileshji is our national president and we will contest polls under him. He was made president at national convention."
The Mulayam camp is likely to submit its set of affidavits tomorrow, the deadline set by the EC for both the sides to submit documents before it decides on which side to be allotted the 'cycle' symbol after the split in SP was formalised on January 3.
The Akhilesh Yadav faction had yesterday submitted to the Election Commission affidavits which it claimed to have signatures of "90 per cent" of legislators and delegates, including over 200 of the 229 MLAs and 56 of 68 MLCs.
The Akhilesh faction's documents were submitted by his loyalist uncle Ramgopal in copies of seven as asked by the poll panel.
He claimed that the papers number over 1.5 lakh pages and carry signatures of over 200 MLAs, 56 of the 68 MLCs, 15 of the 24 MPs and nearly 4600 of over 5000 delegates of Samajwadi Party supporting Akhilesh.
