Mulayam Singh Yadav consigned to flames with full state honours

Mulayam Singh Yadav death: Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav, who passed away on Monday after prolonged illness, was cremated on Tuesday at his native village Saifai in Uttar Pradesh. Chants of "Netaji amar rahein" reverberated across Saifai as people thronged the village for his last darshan on Tuesday. At least one lakh people attended the last rites of former CM of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav.

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Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, SP leader Jaya Bachchan, Bihar deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav, Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, BJP leader Kirit Somaiya and PSP chief Shivpal Yadav, Congress presidential candidate Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress MP Pramod Tiwari, among others, attended Netaji's final journey.   

The mortal remains of Mulayam Singh Yadav were brought to the village by Monday evening after he died at Gurugram's Medanta Hospital. The body of the Samajwadi Party patriarch was kept at his 'kothi' and the cremation took place at 3 pm on Tuesday.

Besides a large number of people, who waited for the mortal remains at the venue, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, former MP Dharmendra Yadav and other family members were present when the body was taken out from an ambulance. Mulayam's brother Shivpal Yadav was seen comforting Akhilesh Yadav, placing his hand on his shoulder as the latter broke down.

Soon after the body was laid for the last "darshan", Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Jal Shakti Minister Swatantra Dev Singh and BJP state president Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary arrived and paid their tributes. They also extended their condolences to Akhilesh Yadav.

Yogi Adityanath also paid floral tributes on behalf of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel and Uttar Pradesh government.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Chhatisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel and Bihar CM Nitesh Kumar also arrived at the village on Tuesday. 

Mulayam Singh Yadav's last rites today: Security arrangements in place

Meanwhile, traders in the district decided to keep the markets closed on October 11 as a mark of respect to the leader. According to a senior official, a large number of people, including VIPs and VVIPs, arrived for darshan of the late leader amid tight security arrangements. 

A large number of locals, party workers, leaders and women are continuously reaching Saifai village to extend their condolences and pay tributes to the departed soul. A private security official manning the queues estimated that well around 10,000 people had paid their last respects till 9.30pm.

Among those struggling to gain entry was a 72-year-old man, hailing from a nearby village. A huge pandal was set up at the place where the last rites were performed for people to sit and watch. All members of Netaji's family are present in Saifai.

Mulayam Singh Yadav's journey

Born on November 22, 1939, into a farming family, Yadav was elected an MLA 10 times and an MP, mostly from Mainpuri and Azamgarh, seven times.

He was defence minister from 1996 to 1998 in HD Deve Gowda’s United Front government and became chief minister thrice, in 1989-91, 1993-95, and 2003-07.

For decades, he enjoyed the stature of a national leader but Uttar Pradesh largely remained the “akhara” where Yadav played out his politics, beginning as a teenager influenced by socialist leader Lohia.

For party workers, even when he was no longer the SP president, the patriarch who famously trained as a wrestler in his younger days, remained “Netaji”, the leader.

His presence on the scene provided the glue that held the Yadav clan together, at least to a degree.

A “socialist”, Yadav was open to possibilities in politics.

He had been affiliated with a series of parties -- Lohia’s Sanyukt Socialist Party, Charan Singh’s Bharatiya Kranti Dal, Bharatiya Lok Dal and Samajwadi Janata Party.

He founded his own Samajwadi Party in 1992.

Yadav struck deals with the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress whenever needed to form or save the governments led by him in Uttar Pradesh.

In 2019, Netaji sprang a surprise by praising Modi in Parliament, wishing that he would return as prime minister after the next election.

During his second term as MLA, Indira Gandhi declared an Emergency and Yadav was sent to jail, like many opposition leaders.

Yadav was the leader of the Opposition in the UP Legislative Council and then in the state assembly, before becoming the chief minister for the first time in 1989 with the BJP extending outside support to his Janata Dal government.

When the saffron party withdrew support over the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi issue in 1990, Congress kept its government afloat for some months.

In November 1993, Yadav again headed a government in Uttar Pradesh, supported by the BSP.

It collapsed when the ally pulled the rug.

The SP leader then moved to the national stage, being elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996 from Mainpuri.

As opposition parties tried to form a non-BJP alternative to the Congress, Yadav briefly appeared to be in the fray for the prime minister’s post but ended up becoming the defence minister.

In 2003, he became Uttar Pradesh chief minister for the third time after the collapse of a short-lived BSP-BJP coalition government.

The SP was again in a position to form the Uttar Pradesh government in 2012. But the senior Yadav stepped aside so that his son Akhilesh could become the state’s youngest CM at 38.

The squabbling in the party and the family led to a coup of sorts by Akhilesh Yadav in 2017.

In the final years of his life, the ailing patriarch played a diminishing role in the affairs of the party that he had founded.

(With inputs from PTI)

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