LUCKNOW: After his patch-up with Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and appointment as the party's National General Secretary, Shivpal Singh Yadav could be seen sitting in the front row in the Uttar Pradesh assembly which begins on February 20.
SP chief whip Manoj Kumar Pandey has written a letter to Speaker Satish Mahana for a change in the seating arrangement.
"Now Shivpalji will sit in the front row on party MLA Awadhesh Prasad's seat. Prasad will sit next to Akhilesh Yadav." Pandey told PTI.
Till now the seat next to Akhilesh Yadav, the leader of the opposition, was reserved for Azam Khan.
Now Prasad, SP MLA from Milkipur seat in Ayodhya, will sit there.
Shivpal, who is party MLA from Jaswant Nagar seat in Etawah district, was till now seen sitting in a seat in the back row.
"We have got the letter. Arrangements will be made accordingly," a senior official of the state assembly said.
On the rocks since 2017, the "chacha-bhatija" relationship improved after the death of SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav in October last year.
The two have been seen together a number of times since, a probable factor in Dimple Yadav's winning the Mainpuri Lok Sabha by-poll by a record margin.
The relationship between Shivpal Yadav and his cousin Ramgopal Yadav has also seen a concomitant improvement.
Since the development, the BJP, which tried to leverage the rift in the family for its gains, has turned hostile towards Shivpal.
During the campaign in the Mainpuri by-election, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had likened Shivpal Yadav to a pendulum for his "swinging" from one party to another.