LUCKNOW: Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav’s second wife, Sadhna Gupta, passed away after a prolonged illness at Gurugram’s Medanta Hospital on Saturday. She was recently admitted to the hospital with a lung infection. However, her condition deteriorated and she has shifted to the ICU a few days ago.
Sadhna, 62, was Mulayam’s second wife. And as family dramas usually unfold, the Yadav household witnessed its fair share of glee and grumpiness — most of the latter kept under its breath though it managed to escape frequently — since her formal acceptance into the family, years after the relationship blossomed. Through the years, whispers continued to float around about the strained ties between Mulayam’s son from his first marriage, the current SP chief Akhilesh, and his step-brother, Prateek, whose wife, Aparna Yadav, recently left the family-led party to join the BJP.
Hailing from Bidhuna, now in Auraiya district, Sadhna nursed political ambitions from the beginning and used to attend Janata Dal events. Mulayam was then emerging on the political horizon of UP. He got to know Sadhna, who was 20 years his junior, in the mid-’80s when she was pursuing a course in nursing and was deputed to take care of Mulayam’s ailing mother, Murti Devi. Sources say Sadhna left an indelible mark on Mulayam’s heart when she saved his mother from being given a wrong injection by a nurse.
As they grew closer between 1982 and 1988, Mulayam’s confidant, Amar Singh, was apparently the only one who knew about the relationship. Sadhna got married to a businessman, Chandra Prakash Gupta, in 1986, and gave birth to Prateek a year later. She divorced her husband soon after and became active in politics.
Mulayam is said to have introduced Akhilesh to Sadhna for the first time in 1988, before he was sent to Dholpur Military School in Rajasthan. Mulayam took the reins of UP for the first time in 1989, and remained in touch with Sadhna. He is believed to have considered her his lucky charm.
However, it wasn’t until his first wife Malti Devi’s death in 2003 that Mulayam introduced Sadhna as his second wife.
He had become the UP chief minister for the third time then and had taken Sadhna to the CM house along with the whole Yadav family. It was far from being a rosy family event though. Akhilesh expressed his opposition to his father for giving Sadhna the status of his wife and decided to live separately. Sources say Mulayam placated him by promising that neither Sadhna nor Prateek would ever claim his political legacy. Little did they know then perhaps that the political pushback would come from Prateek’s wife, Aparna.
Though neither Akhilesh nor Sadhna ever came out in open against each other, his supporters had held her responsible when the fierce family feud was at its peak in 2017. They blamed her for driving a wedge between the father and son, saying she wanted to introduce her son to politics. Now, with Aparna joining the BJP and Akhilesh-led SP at its nadir in state politics, Sadhna’s demise seems to be another sad chapter in the family’s story.
Yogi, Maurya extend condolences
Mulayam Singh Yadav was in Delhi at the time of his wife’s death, party sources said, adding that the body would be brought to Lucknow. Senior party leaders and workers on Saturday started arriving at the SP patron’s house soon after the news of Gupta’s death broke. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya tweeted to extend their condolences to Yadav and his family.