Once upon a time in India, there lived a great wrestler named Mulayam Singh Yadav of Uttar Pradesh. He was adept at chakra daav, the art of deftly throwing an opponent off his feet. He went on to win bigger wrestling matches in the treacherous political akhada of UP by creating the Samajawadi Party, and later, playing referee in many national political competitions.
His son Akhilesh Yadav has understood the secret of stardom: be seen and heard by 141 crore Indians and 543 MPs. Many young MPs are making friends and forgoing foes to elevate their political stature. Akhilesh is more than just an MP—he was a chief minister. By sitting on dharna organised by regional parties against the NDA at Jantar Mantar, Akhilesh made the point that regional is national.
He was invited by Andhra Pradesh’s ousted CM, Jagan Mohan Reddy, who warned that his YSR Congress had 15 MPs in parliament and the NDA government, which includes his nemesis Chandrababu Naidu as a partner, should not take him lightly. He and Akhilesh have rarely met socially or for a political cause. Still, Yadav Jr accepted his invitation. It is clever optics: Akhilesh is extending his political turf beyond North India and wants to acquire national party status for SP by 2029. Socialism as ideology has passed its expiry date, but socialising in politics is the opposition playbook. Akhilesh is the New Deal—a young leader repositioning himself as a national leader while not playing the caste card and possessing a modern mind without Mulayam‘s Lohiaite baggage. For SP, Yadadism is dead, long live a new Yadav. Akhilesh now leads a minimised Yadavised outfit.
Ever since he led SP to a stunning victory with 37 Lok Sabha seats in UP to become the third largest party in the 18th Lok Sabha, he is on an overdrive inside and outside his party. He is no longer a low-key paladin; he delivers well-researched speeches laced with sarcasm, poetry and sober ideology. He has been meeting leaders across parties and is more than willing to give biting bytes to reporters waiting outside his home or parliament.
In Delhi, he held meetings of his parliamentary party to plan SP’s future strategy for dominating and influencing an alternative narrative against Narendra Modi’s government. According to party sources, he also held individual and collective meetings with opposition honchos. He makes it a point to attend the Lok Sabha along with wife Dimple Yadav and gives the Kennedy touch: an attractive political couple with good intentions for their country. He takes an active part in influencing the parliamentary agenda. He never misses a social get-together. When travelling outside UP, he meets persons who can provide inputs and information. This year, he visited Kolkata, Patna, Chennai and Mumbai.
It’s a big change in political style. For the past decade, Akhilesh confined himself to Lucknow and met mostly close confidants, leaving home only for party meetings. The rest of the time, he spent with family, playing football or cricket in the backyard of his house. Now, after many years, India is seeing a new young regional raja itching to play a national role. Mamata Banerjee, M K Stalin and Tejashwi Yadav have by and large stayed in their home states, while Akhilesh bonds with their MPs in Delhi. He has tried his hand at coalition-making and unmaking. He flirted with the Congress and BSP, but failed. But he is not giving up the fight, because age is on his side.
Akhilesh‘s endgame is to transform SP into an inclusive platform and reach the top. He tweaked his father’s political style and is sculpting his own version by purging old disloyalists with tainted images. Mulayam‘s winning ticket was his anti-Congress agenda. In 2014, he ensured Rahul Gandhi's win in Amethi by transferring SP votes overnight to the Congress just before voting day. He was also responsible for blocking Sonia Gandhi from being PM after Atal Bihari Vajpayee lost the vote of confidence in 1998; he refused to give a letter of support for his party’s 39 MPs to the president. Yet, a couple of years later, he drove down to 10 Janpath to seek her backing for Pranab Mukherjee‘s presidency.
Akhilesh is finally stepping into his father’s shoes. There is a big difference, though: his first fight was against family members. Mulayam appointed him the UP SP chief in 2012 just before the assembly elections. Akhilesh‘s state-wide rath and cycle yatras made him UP’s first youth icon, giving SP over two-thirds of the seats. As Akhilesh began to assert himself as CM, he faced internal revolts from family. He sacked Mulayam‘s familial, political and bureaucratic nominees. A furious Mulayam expelled him from the party. The son retaliated, sacking the father from the presidentship and took charge. The feud went to the Election Commission, which gave the party and its symbol to Akhilesh. By 2017, Akhilesh was in full charge.
A private player who keeps everyone guessing, he is perhaps the only Indian politician who doesn’t have an advisor playing an extra-constitutional role. A degree holder in environmental engineering from both Indian and foreign institutions, he has mastered the art of environment management. Akhilesh is not surrounded by any Yadav, though Yadavs have won five elections. He has freed a Yadav-led party from Yadavs.
Though half the party posts and legislator seats were grabbed by Yadavs, Akhilesh convinced his family they must share power with other communities if they wanted to rule India someday. Akhilesh diluted his father’s political coalition of MY (Muslim and Yadav) and coined a new slogan, PDA (Pichhde or backward, Dalits, Alpasankhyak or minorities). PDA was a game-changer—it took SP from five MPs to 37 in 2024. Non-Yadavs were the majority on the candidate list. Akhilesh has learnt to speak the language of a modernist: liberal and humane with capitalist values, as his track record as CM shows.
Yet, Akhilesh is not a man in a hurry. A five-term Lok Sabha MP, a CM at 38, and party chief at 45, he is both treading and laying his political path with caution. He sticks to his political identity—though Congressmen have given up the Gandhi cap, Akhilesh stands out at every political event in his red cap. He is no comrade, but is a socialist at heart with a laissez-faire mind. Sober and soft spoken, he hasn’t uttered a single toxic word against any BJP leader including Yogi and Modi. UP may be a polarised battleground, but Yogi as CM and Akhilesh as Leader of the Opposition display civilised political conduct, because the state comes first for both. Both are in the same age group and are potential PM candidates in the long run.
But one key question remains: which of the two ‘UP ke ladke’ (Rahul and Akhilesh) will get the cup? The outcome of 2027 assembly election will provide a partial answer. Mulayam’s lesson has been, ‘It’s OK to lose the match if you win the tournament’. In this case, Akhilesh is playing against both friends and foes. There are some permanent enemies and friends in politics, but permanent interests are non-negotiable.
prabhu chawla
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com
Follow him on X @PrabhuChawla