Keeping up With UP | The family reconciliation that may change UP’s politics

Mulayam Singh Yadav must now be a contented man. The party is safe in his son’s hands. The uncle will not do more damage, at least in 2022 or as long as he is around

It was the uncanniest of coincidences, perhaps the kind only Indian, and the politics of Uttar Pradesh in particular, can throw up. On December 16, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was speaking in the Uttar Pradesh assembly, and took a swipe at his foremost competitor for the top chair, Akhilesh Yadav. He attacked him with an old and practised jibe, but one that would have hurt. “We respect our elders and do not throw out our father and uncle from the party,” Aditayanath said, referring to the seemingly never-ending family feuds within the top echelons of the Samajwadi Party. What Adityanath may not have known was that on the same day, Mulayam Singh Yadav, the founder member of the Samajwadi Party was putting final touches of a script that had begun with handing over the legacy of the party to his son in 2012, but was now culminating in a long-awaited reconciliation between Akhilesh Yadav, and his uncle, the influential Shivpal Singh Yadav.

Insiders indicate that even the SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav had preferred an alliance to a merger as he does not want to unsettle his son, who is now an established leader of the state (AP Photo)

For years now, the BJP has been using the Yadav family drama to embarrass Akhilesh Yadav, while wooing his estranged uncle to split the Yadavs, the core vote of the Samajwadi Party. In August 2018, as Shivpal announced his new party the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia, he was promptly allotted an impressive office complex. The PSP-L contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in 56 seats, and lost deposits in 55.

But even then, some damage had been done. Shivpal contested against Akshay Yadav, the son of his cousin Professor Ram Gopal Yadav. Both lost the seat but the BJP emerged the beneficiary of their tussle. PSP-L leaders claim that the SP lost the prestigious Kannauj seat, from where Akhilesh’s wife Dimple Yadav contested, primarily because of them.

Thus, while the BJP believed the split in the party was final, the old warhorse Mulayam, despite bouts of ill health at the age of 82, worked out a rapprochement between his “stubborn” son, as he described him once in an interview to HT, and his brother, who grew up doing politics with him.

The talks on reconciliation have been going on for a while between Akhilesh and Shivpal Yadav, and there were signs of an alliance, if not quite an outright merger. Insiders indicate that even the SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav had preferred an alliance to a merger as he does not want to unsettle his son, who is now an established leader of the state and has emerged as the real challenger to the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party for the forthcoming elections. The re-entry of Shivpal would have created blocs and groups within the party that right now stands solidly behind Akhilesh, who is also the party’s national president.

The three Yadavs have their own independent bungalows within the radius of a kilometre in the state capital. Mulayam drove down to his brother’s place where Akhilesh, too, was called for an amicable settlement ahead of the forthcoming polls with the realization that Shivpal could have been a spoilsport in a keenly contested election. He was trained by Mulayam in poll management and their togetherness would solidify Yadav votes.

Significantly, though the party had split, the over 100-member Yadav family has by and large remained united behind Mulayam, displaying bonhomie at family functions, which the founder used for political messaging. On his birthday on November 22, 2018, Mulayam had stayed away from Etawah, where Shivpal had organised his favourite sport, dangal (wrestling), to celebrate his birthday. Instead, he went to the party office where he told the workers, “When everybody thought that the Samajwadi movement was over, I founded the Samajwadi Party in 1991. When some of my critics described me as a leader of one or two districts, we formed the government four times and remained in power at the Centre twice. Now, when some leaders have tried to divide the party, they have ended up in isolation.”

To recap, the SP won its first majority in the 2012 assembly elections, the campaign for which was spearheaded by Akhilesh Yadav. Despite protests from Shivpal, who wanted Mulayam to be CM and Akhilesh deputy CM, on the patterns of the then Shiromani Akali Dal government in Punjab, where Prakash Singh Badal was CM and his son Sukhbir Singh Badal deputy CM, Mulayam managed to install Akhilesh on the chief minister’s chair.

Across India, regional parties that have a family at their centre, have often struggled with the transfer of power that can be a long arduous process, the DMK in Tamil Nadu and the RJD in Bihar, for example, also have their share of strife. But party leaders reveal that this transfer of power has been Mulayam’s most important project of the last few years, something that he has handled astutely, at times confounding even those he was looking to control or negotiate with. He has fasted at one point, reprimanded Akhilesh publicly, while assuaging the hurt sentiments of Shivpal. His frequent flip-flops, perhaps, confused both son and brother and other senior leaders, but he has had his way.

Party leader Reoti Raman Singh once told me informally, “No one can ever understand Mulayam and his moves.” Recalling the national convention in Lucknow in which Akhilesh was hurriedly re-elected national president of the party, he said, “I went there because Mulayam told me to attend the convention. He said he was also attending it but never came.” The resolutions passed smoothly as Shivpal also stayed home.

Many wonder why did Mulayam, whose writ runs large in the party, allowed such a public falling out when he could have quelled this sooner, and in the confines of his home. Senior socialist leader from Allahabad Vinod Dubey said, “It was not a drama, it was an ego clash as some vested interests misguided Mulayam in believing that his son was challenging him. However, when he realised that his son was only taking forward his legacy, he blinked.”

Mulayam Singh Yadav must now be a contented man. The party is safe in his son’s hands. The uncle will not do more damage, at least in 2022 or till he is around. But Mulayam Singh Yadav will know that this truce may well be temporary if not taken care of. Henceforth, Akhilesh and Shivpal may have to write their own scripts.

From her perch in Lucknow, HT’s resident editor Sunita Aron will highlight important issues related to the coming elections in Uttar Pradesh.