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Nitish Kumar pays tribute to Mulayam Singh Yadav in Saifai, emphasises need to back Akhilesh Yadav
Nitish Kumar reached Saifai in a special plane with his cabinet colleague Sanjay Jha and Janata Dal (United) president Lallan Singh.
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar visited Saifai on Wednesday to pay tribute to Samajwadi Party (SP) founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.
“We need to back (SP chief) Akhilesh Yadav strongly, we need to take him ahead,” he said.
Asked about bringing Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle Shivpal Yadav together, Nitish Kumar said it was an entirely different thing.
Nitish Kumar reached Saifai in a special plane with his cabinet colleague Sanjay Jha and Janata Dal (United) president Lallan Singh. He met Samajwadi Party national president Akhilesh Yadav at the Yadav family home where he garlanded the portrait of Mulayam Singh Yadav.
He stayed with the family for nearly 25 minutes and sat on the floor, holding Akhilesh Yadav’s hands.
Outside, he said to reporters the demise of the SP patriarch was a huge loss to not only Uttar Pradesh but the entire country and deeply painful for him. Shivpal Yadav accompanied the Bihar chief minister.
Nitish Kumar touched upon the issue of opposition unity and said, “We want everyone (opposition) to come together; but this is not the right time, this moment is a moment of grief.”
“I had tried earlier to bring everyone together; we want more and more to join hands. U.P. and Bihar are not separate, we are together,” he said.
He said when the Janata Dal was undivided, he was in charge of Uttar Pradesh and kept frequenting the state.
“I have a special bond with Uttar Pradesh, the state will develop when we come together,” he added.
Asked about the relationship between SP chief Akhilesh Yadav and Shivpal Yadav, he said it is an entirely different thing.
Akhilesh Yadav has been the chief minister of the most populous state and “we have to back him, we have to promote him,” he said.
Other politicians, industrialists, people from the field of education and literature also reached Saifai on Wednesday to pay their respects to Mulayam Singh Yadav. They included Bihar Jantantrik Party president Pappu Yadav, former MLC Brijesh Singh, Congress spokesman Akhilesh Pratap Singh, former UP Hindi Seva Sansthan chairman Dr Uday Pratap Singh, industrialist from Punjab Vijendra Chaddha, Bharatiya Kisan Union (apolitical) president Rajesh Chauhan, former deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma and MLC Kunwar Manvendra Singh. A large number of party leaders and supporters from Punjab, Haryana, eastern UP, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu also offered their condolences and tributes.
