LUCKNOW: IN a renewed bid to strike a patch up with the Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, the former state chief of SP said that if the former UP CM was ready to restore SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav’s pride and prestige in the party, he was ready to bury the hatchet and reunite with him.
“If Akhilesh hands over the party reins to Netaji, there are chances of reconciliation and the family could be together once again,” stated Shivpal while speaking informally at a party function here late Thursday evening. But the very next moment the SP MLA from Jaswantnagar was reminded of his own insult and the way he was stripped of his stature in the party. He launched a broadside on Akhilesh and went to the extent of calling him a supercilious leader in making.
“All the development works done by Akhilesh as UP chief minister went in vain the moment he humiliated Netaji. But if he can restore Netaji’s lost prestige by handing him over the party reins, we can again come on the same page,” Shivpal said.
Once considered to be a SP stalwart who stood by elder brother Mulayam unflinchingly when the intense family feud was at its peak, Shivpal said that the party paid for Akhilesh’s arrogance in Assembly elections as the people rejected him right away for insulting and dethroning SP patriarch unceremoniously under the influence of some forces who were acting against party interests.
Shivpal also accused the SP chief of getting swayed by a few ‘sycophants’ who, he said, created a rift in the family. The SP leader reminded Akhilesh of his promise that if the party would lose at hustings he would return it to Netaji but “he is yet to fulfil his commitment,” Shivpal maintained.
It may be recalled that Shivpal had reiterated his resolve to launch a ‘Secular Front’ of all the like- minded parties to be headed by Mulayam. He had also revealed his plan to call a convention for the formal announcement of the Front on July 6 in Lucknow. He had even claimed that July 6 convention would see the participation of prominent Samajwadis and over a lakh party workers.