With the feud in the Yadav family becoming a battle for the symbol of Samajwadi Party, Mulayam Singh Yadav today asserted that he remains to the party president and that his son Akhilesh Yadav is only the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.
He also stated that his brother Shivpal Yadav is the state president of SP.
Addressing a press conference, Mulayam said, “I am the chief of Samajwadi Party, Akhilesh Yadav is the Chief Minister of UP and Shivpal Yadav is the state President.”
Hitting out at Ramgopal Yadav, he said that no one other than him has the right to call upon party convention.
“Ramgopal Yadav is expelled for six years, can't call party convention,” Mulayam told reporters.
Earlier in the day, Mulayam stressed that there was "no dispute" in the party as he met party workers at the SP headquarters along with Shivpal this morning.
When asked about the ongoing tussle within the family and party, Mulayam said, "hamari party me koi vivad nahi hai" (There is no dispute in our party).
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.
Yesterday, the Akhilesh faction submitted to the EC affidavits which it claimed to have signatures of "90 percent" of legislators and delegates, including over 200 of the 229 MLAs.
