LUCKNOW: Amid the joy and celebrations of the resounding victory of Dimple Yadav, the SP candidate in the Mainpuri Lok Sabha bypoll, uncle Shivpal Yadav buried the hatchet with nephew Akhilesh Yadav and merged his Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSPL) with the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Saifai on Thursday.
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav cemented the merger of PSPL with SP by presenting his party flag to Shivpal Singh Yadav in his native village Safai. As per the party sources, both the leaders sat together in Saifai where Akhilesh presented his party's flag to his uncle. Later, they posted photographs of the event on Twitter.
An SP flag was also mounted on Shivpal Singh Yadav's car by the party's workers reflecting the possible coming together of the two parties. Confirming the merger, Shivpal told the media persons in Saifai that from now onwards he would be fulfilling whatever responsibility he would be given by the SP chief. “We have merged Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) with Samajwadi Party.
In 2024, we will fight unitedly. From today, there will be a Samajwadi Party flag (on my car),” said Shivpal. With turbulent ties for the last five years, 'chacha-bhatija' finally came together to ensure the victory of Dimple Yadav in the bypoll necessitated due to the demise of SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.
In fact, Akhilesh along with Dimple broke the ice ahead of the Mainpuri bypoll by reaching out to Shivpal at his Etawah residence seeking his support to ensure Dimple’s victory in Mainpuri. Shivpal Yadav had also extensively campaigned for Dimple Yadav after her candidature was announced in the constituency vacated by her father-in-law's death.
In fact, Shivpal and Akhilesh had come together during the UP Assembly polls in 2022 when Shivpal contested on an SP ticket from the Jaswantnagar seat and won it with a margin of 28,000 votes. However, Shivpal was not content with the alliance with SP as Akhilesh had allegedly refused to spare more seats for PSPL.
Rift re-emerged between Akhilesh and Shivpal after the latter expressed his annoyance with SP chief publicly over not being invited to SP MLAs’ meeting just after the assembly poll results.
In the mean times, Shivpal's growing proximity with the BJP leaders and his meeting with Yogi Adityanath triggered many reactions from the SP camp and his alliance with SP was broken on a bitter note when Akhilesh freed him and asked him to focus on his party.
However, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav's death in October brought the Yadavs together again.