Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav’s wife Sadhna Yadav today finally broke her silence on the infighting within the first family of the state and said that though she harboured no aspirations of joining active politics, she did wish her son to enter the political fray.
Sadhna, the second wife of SP patriarch Mulayam, has been widely reported as being the cause behind the rift between Akhilesh and his father.
“Netaji never allowed me to come forward. However, I was very active in the background works,” she said, adding that “now I don't want to join politics, but yes I would like my son Prateek to be a politician”.
Sadhna’s Prateek has been reluctant to join politics. He runs a gym and owns luxury cars. He is the only ‘non-politician’ from the family. His blue Lamborgini was a much-talked subject in the poll campaigns. His wife Aparana Yadav is pitted against BJP’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi from Lucknow Cantt seat.
Sadhna said that she was ‘hurt the way the drama unfolded in the last few months’, but refrained from blaming anyone directly.
Without naming Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav for the crisis, she said, “Yes I feel bad after what happened in the family. I don’t blame anyone (for allegations on her). A Chief Secretary was transferred, people said I was behind it. Its false, though I wish I was so powerful.”
In a veiled attack at Akhilesh for insulting her husband Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sadhna said, “No matter what, nobody should have disrespected Netaji. It is he who founded and nurtured the party.”
“We will not go back, we were insulted a lot,” she further stated.
Escalating her offensive against Akhilesh for the happenings in the party since January, Sadhna also raked up the issue of Shivpal Yadav saying he shouldn’t have been insulted.
“Shivpal has done a lot for Netaji and the party and he shouldn't have been insulted,” she said.
When questioned as to who had misled Akhilesh, she refrained from a direct answer, saying she wasn’t aware of who had “misled Akhilesh”, adding that “he respects Netaji and me a lot.”
Sadhna said that she has been in touch with Akhilesh since January 1, the day he replaced his father from the post of the Samajwadi Party president.
"I have been more in conversation with Akhilesh since January 1, than I've been in last five years. I want see him become Chief Minister again,” she said.
On the party’s ‘Kaam Bolta Hai’ campaign, she said, “I was brought up in a family where my father used to say that one should not publicise good work, but now time is different.”
The power tussle within the Samajwadi Party had almost derailed it just ahead of the Assembly polls.
The two factions – one led by Mulayam and another by his son Akhilesh, had to approach the Election Commission to seek the full control of the party. The EC had ruled in the favour of Akhilesh after he presented affidavits of MLAs, MLAc and MPs supporting his candidature for SP president post.
