NEW DELHI: It’s a birthday that Akhilesh Yadav would surely never want to remember. Not only did his once- doting father, Samajwadi Party strongman Mulayam Singh Yadav, who had made him chief minister of Uttar Pradesh five years ago, forget the day — he did something worse. He openly backed his son’s bête noires — his own brother Shivpal Yadav and aide Amar Singh — in full view of the party’s rank and file, reducing the young chief minister to tears.
With this, the feud seemed to lurch to a point of no return. The ageing wrestler-politician’s last bid at ending the feud with his own signature written on it had a bad ending. If he was to play umpire for a bout between his brother and son, it was devoid of impartiality. The ringside view was ugly; scuffles became the order of the day. Clearly bristling over his summary removal from Akhilesh’s cabinet for the second time in a month, Shivpal, also the state party chief, forcibly took the mic from the young chief minister and called him “a liar’’. He even accused him of plotting to break the Samajwadi Party to float his own outfit. “Akhilesh Yadav had said to me that he will form another party. He said it, he said it to me,” Shivpal asserted, at the party’s truce meeting.
An emotionally wrought Akhilesh tried to rebut the accusations. “People are saying a new party will be formed. Who is forming a new party? I am not!...I was deeply hurt when I heard from others that you want to remove me. This is your party and I’ve no stakes…I’ve nothing in the party. I’m only Netaji’s son,’’ he said. He added that he would resign any day if his father asks him to. However, his close aides and loyalists indicate he has no such intention.
He will fight till the end for what is being considered Mulayam’s political legacy as well control over the party, prior to the elections and in the future. And Netaji was later on record that “Akhilesh will not be removed…he will remain Chief Minister.’’ But that was about the only concession Mulayam was ready to make for Akhilesh. On Shivpal and particularly Amar, Netaji was unwilling to take action. “I can’t leave Amar Singh or Shivpal Yadav. All of Amar Singh’s sins are forgiven. He helped us in difficult times,” Mulayam announced at the meeting, to which Shivpal added for good measure that “those who are criticising Amar Singh are not even worth the dust of his feet.’’
The bellicosity apart, two sides stopped short of employing their ultimate weapon. Mulayam, despite his anger, refused to remove his son from the chief minister chair and Akhilesh denied that he would be leaving his father to strike it out on his own. Late-evening talks that Shivpal was pushing for Mulayam to take over as chief minister after sacking his son found no official corroboration.
Mulayam, though, did pooh-pooh Akhilesh’s brag that he has the youth behind him while the latter rejected as “forged’’ the letter his father flashed to claim the minorities — one of the SP’s trusted votebank’s — were “disgruntled”. It was clear that Mulayam realises that Akhilesh remained the party’s USP before the election, despite the rift and his assertion that Shivpal was a “mass leader’’.