The rift in the Yadav family continues to surpass past proportions with each passing day. Now, party legislator Udayveer Singh, who is a strong supporter of CM Akhilesh Yadav, has accused Mulayam Singh Yadav’s second wife of being part of the conspiracy against Akhilesh, saying the party patriarch needed to make way for his son.
MLC Udayveer went on to make a stringent attack on state party chief and Mulayam’s brother Shivpal Yadav, terming him as the “political front” of the CM’s stepmother, says a Times of India report.
In a four-page letter to Mulayam, he wrote, “SP state president Shivpal Yadav and other members of his family have misled you (Mulayam) and hatched a conspiracy against CM Akhilesh who should be made party national president and given all the powers.”
It is the first time that a party functionary has asked Mulayam to make way for his son and suggested that the ongoing tussle in the party is a result of the feud in the Yadav family involving the CM and his stepmother.
In the letter, he also stated that the attempts to damage the reputation of Akhilesh began after Mulayam proposed his name for the CM’s post.
The letter included a subhead “Personal jealousy against CM” under which he wrote, “As this information came out in the open that you want Akhilesh to become the CM, conspiracies were hatched within the family. Though Akhilesh's step-mother herself remained behind the scenes, Shivpal came forward as her political face and started contacting senior party leaders to prevent this.”
Defending expelled youth leaders, including MLCs, he said, "They were expelled on false grounds and it is against social justice."
The MLC also attacked Shivpal for supporting gangster- turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari's Quami Ekta Dal (QED) and making allegations that party leaders of Mainpuri were involved in land grabbing and illegal liquor business.
He alleged that Mulayam was "motivating" Shivpal to make such allegations and not acting when an MLA and Mainpuri district unit chief issued a press notes making objectionable comments against SP national general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav.
"A conspiracy was hatched against Akhilesh in 2012 within the family and Shivpal contacted various leaders to stop Mulayam from making him the chief minister," he alleged.
Udayveer also dubbed SP's RS member Amar Singh as "chatur and chaalbaaz" (cunning).
Interestingly, during the feud between Shivpal and Akhilesh, Amar was seen as the one who had engineered it.
"While leaders like Gayatri Prasad Prajapati are favoured, dedicated ones like SRS Yadav and Naresh Uttam are sidelined in a deliberate insult to Akhilesh," Udayveer alleged.
His barb came in the wake of Shivpal nominating the controversial minister as the coordinator of the party's Silver Jubilee celebrations on November 5.
Akhilesh will embark on his 'Vikas Rath Yatra' alone from November 3 which might make him skip the party's silver jubilee celebrations.
Apart from reaching out to people and galvanising party workers, his yatra is being seen as a move to truncate the influence of Shivpal, who had been appointed the new state party president in his place.
Advising Mulayam to declare Akhilesh as his "political heir and not an alternative", Udayveer said he (CM) should be given power to distribute tickets.
However, soon after this letter, another MLC Ashu Malik came out in favour of Mulayam, stating that he was "peeved over people pointing accusing finger at the great leader".
"...People insulting netaji (Mulayam) today will certainly do the same with Akhilesh tomorrow," he said in his Facebook post.
"Those writing letters advising and insulting 'netaji' (Mulayam) in sycophancy did not have the capacity of getting even 500 votes," he said, adding he has seen love between father and son - Mulayam and Akhilesh.
"Akhilesh is an ideal son and Mulayam has always performed his duties as a father. Both of them have clarified that there is no dispute in the party and those sycophants, who are writing letters are insulting both," Malik said.
Meanwhile, as the letter-war heated up, the chief minister took exception to the missives and said workers need not write about him to his father and stop writing such letters altogether.
As infighting continued unabated with Mulayam siding with Shivpal and his cousin Ram Gopal throwing his weight behind the chief minister, the distribution of tickets is likely to create more bad blood in the Mulayam clan.
(With PTI inputs)
