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Estranged Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav likely to float new political party
Shivpal Yadav had announced the formation of the Samajwadi Secular Morcha (SSM) through which he intends to bring like-minded political outfits together
Shivpal Yadav, Samajwadi Party MLA from Uttar Pradesh’s Jaswantnagar and estranged uncle of party president Akhilesh Yadav, is likely to start his own political party next month.
Last Wednesday, Shivpal had announced the formation of the Samajwadi Secular Morcha (SSM) through which he intends to bring like-minded political groups together.
An SP leader familiar with the developments said Shivpal had offered the post of national president of his proposed party to his elder brother and Samajwadi Party patriarch, Mulayam Singh Yadav, which he turned down.
Political circles in Lucknow are abuzz with talk of the developments in the Yadav family which seem to have ended the possibility of any reconciliation between Shivpal and Akhilesh.
The SP leader said peace talks, held in the family last week, had failed.
A youth leader close to Akhilesh said: “Will any peace talk be relevant if he (Shivpal), in his impatience, goes ahead and announces a Morcha? Now, we hear that he is going to float a political party.”
“Akhilesh ji is focusing on larger issues and preparation for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He had even told the family that he would give a suitable position to Shivpal ji at an appropriate time. Still, he announced that his Morcha will contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. What can we say?” he asked.
Shivpal was not available for comment as he was in Kathmandu, Nepal.
On 1 September, Shivpal had announced that the Morcha would contest all 80 Lok Sabha seats in UP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
Two days later, he dropped ‘senior Samajwadi Party leader’ from his Facebook and Twitter accounts and called himself a ‘leader of Samajwadi Secular Morcha’ and member of the UP legislature from Jaswant Nagar.
In the meantime, Mulayam maintained silence over Shivpal’s moves but showed an affinity towards Akhilesh. A day after Shivpal announced the Morcha, Mulayam visited the SP headquarters in Lucknow and addressed the party workers.
On the day Shivpal announced that the Morcha would contest all 80 seats in UP, Mulayam again visited the party office.
Last October, Mulayam had congratulated Akhilesh on being re-elected the party president. When the SP-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) combine won the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls, he appreciated Akhilesh’s move of forming an alliance with the BSP.
Mulayam was a vociferous critic of the SP-Congress alliance in the 2017 UP assembly elections.
SK Dwivedi, a political analyst and former head of the department of political science at Lucknow University, said: “It might not bring any major benefits to Shivpal but it will hurt Akhilesh and the SP-BSP alliance. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be the clear beneficiary.”
When Akhilesh was asked about Shivpal’s Morcha, he had said: “We have democracy in our family.”
