LUCKNOW: The family feud, which played a major role in the obliteration of Samajwadi Party in the recently-concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, is refusing to die down. In the latest turn of events, SP's former state chief and party’s Jaswantnagar MLA Shivpal Yadav has renewed his call to ex-CM and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav to keep his word and hand over the party baton to SP patriarch Mualyam Singh Yadav in next three months or else he would launch a separate ‘Secular Front’.
Striking a defiant note once again, Shivpal reminded Akhilesh of his promise of relinquishing the reins of the party once the UP polls were over and hand over the party to Netaji. "He had sought three months' time. Now I am giving him three more months to fulfil his promise. Transfer party’s headship to Netaji and unite the family again or else I will launch a Secular Front," Shivpal said, while interacting with media persons in Etawah on Wednesday.
The SP leader added that the party could be revived only under Mulayam Singh Yadav's leadership while the front he was contemplating to launch would aim at giving a new face to Samajwadi movement and voice to SP cadre as it was being muzzled under the present dispensation.
Targeting cousin and SP general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav, Shivpal went to the extent of calling him Shakuni of Samajwadi Party who had ruined the organisation through his scheming ways. He accused Ram Gopal of ensuring the party's decimation in a planned way."He was involved in ticket distribution in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, and the party could manage only five seats while in 2017 Assembly polls, he brought the party down from 229 to 47," Shivpal said. He said that it was high time that Ram Gopal resigned on moral grounds and read Bhagwad Gita.
This is the second instance when Shivpal has come out in open with his intention to launch a separate outfit. Earlier, while filing his nomination papers from Jaswantnagar for Assembly polls, the ex-SP state chief, miffed with the way Akhilesh had dislodged Mulayam from the party, had threatened to part ways and launch his own outfit after March 11.
While criticising the police administration for intimidating SP workers, the Samajwadi party leader was all praise for CM Yogi Adityanath describing him as a person of strong will and firm conviction to work. He, however, claimed that the chief minister’s officers were working against his principles and bringing a bad name to the government.