LUCKNOW: Hours after the cremation of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. the corridors of UP's electoral politics have gone abuzz over the challenges lying ahead for the regional party after the loss of its patriarch.
No doubt, the party will badly miss the political adeptness and ingenuity of Mulayam and it has to live with the reality.
Mulayam's son Akhilesh Yadav is in mourning. So are the family and the party.
Having said that, the first litmus test for Akhilesh Yadav, Mulayam's successor, will come in the form of the byelection to the Mainpuri parliamentary segment which has fallen vacant due to the demise of his father. The challenge would be to retain the seat saving the pride of the father’s bastion before the big battle of 2024.
While Akhilesh has yet to come to terms with the loss he and the party have suffered, political hawks have started betting over the fact that the ruling BJP may extend support to Akhilesh’s sulking uncle Shivpal Yadav if he decides to test the poll waters in Mainpuri instead of fielding a party candidate.
However, such speculations are too early and premature but gain strength from the fact that Shivpal Yadav had been expressing his willingness to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha election from Mainpuri if big brother Mulayam would have decided not to contest anymore.
“But now, that possibility is no more there and Shivpal may try his luck in the bypoll as and when it happens,” says a senior BJP leader seeking anonymity.
While senior BJP leaders are treading cautiously over the issue, party insiders do not rule out the possibility of backing Shivpal to send out a larger message in the entire Yadav belt across Etawah, Mainpuri, Auraiyya, Kannauj, Badaun, Firozabad and Farrukhabad.
“Any decision in this regard would ultimately be taken by the party’s central leadership,” says the BJP leader.
However, political experts believe that the sailing for Shivpal on an anti-SP instance would not be that smooth as the party and its chief Akhilesh would have a huge sympathy factor in the bypoll with Mulayam no more there. Mainpuri had been a traditional Mulayam bastion. He won Mainpuri five times in 1996, 2004, 2009 and 2014, 2019. Even Akhilesh’s choice of Karhal to contest assembly polls was influenced by the same sentiment.
The political experts also believe that Akhilesh is now entrusted with a huge political legacy left behind by his father to take forward in the same spirit as Mulayam who had ties beyond politics across the political spectrum.
Meanwhile, the ruling party which is being challenged by Akhilesh Yadav vociferously as the main rival, would not think twice in handing out a drubbing repeating the Azamgarh and Rampur bypoll results in Mainpuri.
This had been BJP's long-drawn strategy to win all 80 Lok Sabha seats breaching the Congress and SP strongholds, experts said.