LUCKNOW: Hours after Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi firmed up their alliance in UP, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav stirred up another row by disapproving the SP-Congress tie-up and refusing to campaign for it in the poll-bound State.
Mulayam’s stand, at this juncture, is likely to dent the prospects for the coalition which has been stitched up to keep BJP at bay by wooing Muslims and famers in ensuing elections. Akhilesh, who is busy holding a whirlwind campaign by addressing 11 public rallies in two days - January 30, 31-in a number of the western UP districts which are going to vote in the first phase on February 11, would undoubtedly find it difficult to handle Mulayam’s latest U-turn.
The CM, who has been claiming of enjoying his father’s trust and blessings in all his political endeavours, is confident of placating the SP patriarch and convince him how crucial this coalition will prove for Samajwadis who are targeting the magic figure of 300 of 403 Assembly constituencies in ensuing polls. Mulayam’s Sunday statement that he had been against any alliance with Congress right from the beginning and that it was not needed as the Samajwadi Party was capable of fighting the polls and forming the next majority government on its own, has indeed wielded a psychological jolt to the SP-Congress’s poll juggernaut.
For Akhilesh, it does not seem to be a smooth walk. Though the SP chief has said that he will placate his father and convince him of the benefits of this coalition, but Mulayam’s decision to keep away from the campaign may leave the traditional SP voter in a quandary. In fact, the SP patriarch tops the party’s star campigners’ list. His absence during the party manifesto release ceremony had already raised many eyebrows in political circles and now Mulayam’s call to his supporters to fight against the Congress candidates will further consolidate the perception that Akhilesh-Mulayam patch-up after January 16 EC order was only cosmetic and misgivings still exist in the SP first family.
Akhilesh, though, is keeping a brave front when he says that if SP-Congress alliance emerges victorious and SP forms the next government with absolute majority, Netaji would be the happiest person. With Mulayam’s latest outburst on one hand, his disgruntled loyalists, on the other, may also nag the ruling party. The likes of Ambika Chaudhary and Narad Rai have already parted ways from Samajwad on pretext of feeling insulted in the party as they were denied party tickets by Akhilesh. Both Chaudhary and Rai have joined the BSP and got tickets from Phephna and Ballia (Sadar) respectively.
Similarly, QED chief Mukhtar Ansari too turned to the BSP after being rejected by the CM. Ansari got a ticket for himself from Mau, also for his son Abbas from Ghosi and sibling Sigbatulla from Mohammdabad in Ghazipur district from ‘Behenji’ and portrayed Akhilesh as anti-Muslim among traditional muslim votebank of SP. This is not all, while ex-minister and sitting SP MLA from Sarojininagar seat in Lucknow district, Sharda Pratap Shukla has turned a rebel and filed his nomination from RLD, another Mulayam loyalist and party’s sitting MLA from Zahoorabad Shadab Fatima took out a procession in Varanasi on Sunday, claiming that she would contest from her traditional seat on Mulayam’s directives.
Fatima had won Zahoorabad seat twice in the 2007 and 2012 assembly elections. However, she has been denied the ticket this time as SP has announced Mahendra Chauhan as its candidate from Zahoorabad. Speaking during the procession, she said there was a conspiracy to deny her a ticket, but she didn't want to name people involved in it. At a time, when the feud in the family was appearing to have settled down and Akhilesh had emerged all powerful walking away with the party symbol at the EC, Mulayam’s call to his supporters to fight Congress candidates on all 105 seats allocated to them by the SP chief, may play a spoilsport for Akhilesh’s strategy and political equations,thereby, making his crucial fight all the more difficult on battle ground UP where much is at stake for the newly-anointed SP chief.