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Mainpuri bypoll: Samajwadi Party names Shivpal Yadav as star campaigner
The SP’s announcement came within hours after the BJP fielded Raghuraj Shakya, a former SP lawmaker considered close PSP-L chief
In what appears to be a strategic move, the Samajwadi Party (SP) named Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L) chief Shivpal Singh Yadav as one of the star campaigners of the party for the Mainpuri Lok Sabha bypolls.
The SP’s announcement came within hours after the BJP fielded Raghuraj Shakya, a former SP lawmaker considered close to Shivpal Yadav. It remains to be seen if Shivpal will actually campaign for SP candidate Dimple Yadav, will just keep quiet in her favour or will send out some signals unfavourable to the SP.
The move appears an attempt to pacify Shivpal and prevent him from indicating any divergent stance that might potentially confuse voters. Ever since the SP named party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s wife Dimple Yadav as its candidate, the Yadav family has been projecting the selection as a “consensus family choice” to inherit the SP founder the late Mulayam Singh Yadav’s political legacy.
SP chief national general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav on Monday said Dimple’s name was declared after consultation with family members, including Shivpal Yadav. Ram Gopal made the statement soon after Dimple filed her nomination papers.
Shivpal and his son Aditya Yadav (the PSP-L state president) were not available for their comments on the SP’s announcement. Shivpal had been repeatedly saying that the SP hadn’t been giving him due respect.
This is the first time that the SP included Shivpal on the list of its star campaigners for an election. Although Shivpal had joined hands with the SP in the 2022 U.P. assembly polls, he was not made an SP campaigner. Same was the case during the Azamgarh and the Rampur Lok Sabha bypolls and again in the recent Gola Gokarnnath (Lakhimpur Kheri) assembly bypolls. The BJP won all four polls.
The SP announcement, observers feel, may have put Shivpal in a dilemma. Now that the SP has named him a star campaigner, he may not be in a position to extend any support to the BJP’s Raghuraj Shakya over “family candidate Dimple” among the Yadav community in Mainpuri.
Shivpal had been cross with the SP ever since he was not invited to the SP legislature party meeting soon after the 2022 U.P. assembly polls. The party had excluded him saying he was from the PSP-L and only contested his Jaswantnagar seat on an SP ticket. After that, Shivpal declared that now he will never have any truck with the SP ever.
Shivpal Yadav and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav fell out during the Yadav family feud during the later part of Akhilesh Yadav’s tenure as the U.P. chief minister (2012-2017). The feud was over the control of the party. It culminated in the exit of Shivpal Yadav from the party and Akhilesh becoming the national president of the party replacing in father Mulayam Singh Yadav. The two came together into an alliance for the 2022 U.P. assembly polls. However, soon after the assembly polls, they fell out yet again.
The star campaigners’ list of 40 has SP chief Akhilesh Yadav’s name on the top. Akhilesh had not campaigned in the Azamgarh LS, Rampur LS, and Gola Gokarnnath assembly bypolls. Other prominent names other than Akhilesh and Shivpal are of Azam Khan, Jaya Bachchan, Kiranmoy Nanda, Ram Gopal Yadav, Swami Prasad Maurya, Tej Pratap Singh Yadav and Dharmendra Yadav among others.
