LUCKNOW: With or without Samajwadi Party patriarch and elder brother Mulayam Singh Yadav beside him, estranged SP leader Shivpal Yadav is set to fight his own battle and is ready to go full throttle in 2019 general elections with his new party.
As per the highly placed sources, the founder of Samajwadi Secular Morcha (SSM), may now launch his new party — Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (PSP) — any time next month. He had already approached Election Commission of India (ECI) to apply for registration of his new outfit, said the sources close to Shivpal.
The sources claim that Shivpal had moved an application for registration of his new outfit way back in 2017 but anticipating a truce with nephew Akhilesh Yadav and his prior position in the parent party, the SP leader did not pursue it aggressively.
Moreover, he had also applied for party symbol urging the EC to allot him “wheel” of erstwhile Janata Dal. As the EC had frozen it following a number of splits in Janata Dal and all the splinter groups vying for it. Shivpal made all his moves with such secrecy that he did not share it even with Mulayam, add the sources.
Shivpal, who has already announced that his party would contest all 80 parliamentary constituencies in UP, has been mobilising SP leaders feeling marginalised in the SP. A number of old Samajwadis, sulking under Akhilesh’s leadership, have already joined SSM. CP Rai and former Etawah MP Raghuraj Singh Shakya are among those who have joined SSM.
Notably, Shivpal Yadav, after a long wait following a spell of intense family feud and direct confrontation with nephew and former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav in 2016, launched his SSM last month.
Though Shivpal is still SP MLA from Jaswantnagar and has not relinquished his position, made a number of attempts of rapprochement with Akhilesh during the last two years but to no avail as Akhilesh has refused to budge and continued to ignore Shivpal who had been seeking restoration of his place of pride in the party.