LUCKNOW: Truce remained elusive in Samajwadi Party despite day-long parleys in the warring camps. Hopes for a rapprochement swelled in the morning when Shivpal Yadav went to meet Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in the morning.
Then in the afternoon, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav was to address a press conference to make some ‘important announcement’. However, the press conference was cancelled at the last moment and the situation was back to square one.
The day took off with a one-to-one between Akhilesh Yadav and his father Mulayam Singh at the latter’s residence. This was followed by a ‘compromise formula’ with which Shivpal went to meet unrelenting nephew Akhilesh for the first time after the vertical split in the party, for a possible truce but failed to break the ice. Shivpal, later, went back to Mulayam empty-handed. As per highly-placed sources, while Mulayam wanted Akhilesh to relinquish the party presidentship, Akhilesh, refusing to budge, wanted Amar Singh out of the organisation. But both father and son remained adamant minimising the chances of a patch-up.
Amar, who is one of the reasons behind the rift in the Yadav family, has been offering to withdraw from the party and opened up to the press on Friday targeting many senior leaders of the Akhilesh camp including the chief minister himself.
Attacking Akhilesh covertly, Amar said that it was easier to fight the outsiders than defeating the pain inflicted by close ones. “Tera apna khoon hi tujhko aakhiri aag lagayega (your own blood relation will finally cremate you),” the SP leader said quoting the famous song from film Upkar.
Amar Singh refuted the charges of being a BJP agent or the one who had rejoined the party for his own benefit. “The Chief Minister can always get it probed. I have not been involved in any deal or contract worth even a single penny,” he said.
Talking about the role Shivpal had played in Akhilesh’s life, Amar Singh said Shivpal was next to Mulayam Singh in stature. He also condemned party vice-president Kiranmoy Nanda and Rajya Sabha member Naresh Agarwal calling him a party hopper for siding with Akhilesh leaving Mulayam alone and dethroned.
The SP leader also targeted Akhilesh by making a taunt over the tainted ministers and party candidates including mafia-don-turned politician Ansari brothers saying that all of them had turned taintless the moment they joined the other camp. Meanwhile, senior leader Ram Gopal Yadav, who had to meet the EC officials on Friday to hand over the affidavits signed by party legislators supporting Akhilesh faction in symbol fight, put off his plan till Saturday.