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Mulayam questions SP-BSP pact, says some in party bent on destroying it
The alliance means Akhilkesh Yadav would have to accommodate all the SP’s candidates in half the seats Uttar Pradesh fills in the Lok Sabha, Mulayam Singh Yadav said.
Samajwadi Party (SP) patron Mulayam Singh Yadav on Thursday questioned his son and party chief Akhilesh Yadav’s alliance with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, in a a potential embarrassment to the two parties.
The alliance means Akhilkesh Yadav would have to accommodate all the SP’s candidates in half the seats Uttar Pradesh fills in the Lok Sabha, the party patriarch said, commenting that those in the party are “hell-bent on destroying it”.
Mulayam Singh also said the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was much ahead of the SP in the election campaign in India’s largest state, which sends 80 members to the Lok Sabha.
In January, the SP and BSP said they would contest 39 seats each and not field any candidates in Amethi and Raebareli, represented by Congress president Rahul Gandhi and United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi respectively.
On Thursday, the SP said it will contest 37 seats and BSP will fight 38 in the parliamentary elections, releasing a list of candidates and the seats they have been allotted. The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), the third partner in the alliance, is likely to contest three seats.
“Look now he [Akhilesh] has done gathbandan (alliance) with Mayawati. The SP will contest in half of the seats,” Mulayam Singh said earlier in the day at the party headquarters after Akhilesh Yadav’s press conference with the Patidar leader from Gujarat, Hardik Patel.
After the press conference, Akhilesh Yadav came out and sat on the office lawns for a few minutes, out of earshot of his father. He left well before his father started speaking. “The BJP is ahead in campaign... I will be happy if tickets are given to winnable candidates,” Mulayam said as his son rose and left.
When the alliance with the BSP was sealed, Mulayam Singh had described Akhilesh Yadav as wise for teaming up with Mayawati’s party although the 2017 tie-up with the Congress in the UP assembly elections was wrong. The alliance is relying on its support base of Dalits , other backward classes and minorities to raise its strength in the Lok Sabha. The SP won five seats in 2014 and the BSP none.
On Thursday, he expressed his displeasure at Akhilesh for leaving the party office without listening to him. “Now, I have been made Sanrakshak (patron). Can’t do anything much,” said the 79-year-old party SP patriarch, adding that when he was the party president, the SP contested all 80 Lok Sabha seats and won 39 in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls.
Taking a dig at the fact that Akhilesh has not finalised the SP’s candidates list, Mulayam Singh said that when he was the party president, he had distributed election tickets 14 months before the 2012 UP assembly polls. “We then formed the government,” he said. “Those in the party are hell-bent on destroying it.”
This is the second time that Mulayam Singh Yadav has potentially embarrassed the SP and his son. On March 13, the last day of the 16th Lok Sabha, he said he wished that Prime Minister Narendra Modi returns to power in the upcoming general elections.
“These days what he (Mulayam) says and to which side he is are not clear. He is confused and making SP cadre confused. Such a thing will harm SP and benefit BJP,” said political analyst SK Dwivedi, a former head of the department of political science at Lucknow university who keeps a close watch on UP politics .
Mulayam, who is known to party suporters as “‘Netaji,” wants a strong party base, said Abdul Hafiz Gandhi, spokesperson for the Samajwadi Party.
“National President Akhilesh Yadav ji is doing everything possible to strengthen the party. Akhilesh ji will make Netaji proud by winning maximum seats for SP-BSP alliance. Samajwadi Party is not leaving any stone unturned in decimating NDA (National Democratic Alliance) in UP. I will not comment further than this.”
Mulayam Singh asked party workers to write him confidential letters to tell him the corrective measures could take to win the upcoming elections. The SP should focus only on one thing and that is the general election, he said.
Mulayam Singh’s brother Shivpal Singh Yadav has started his own political party, called the Pragitisheel Samajwadi Party, and claimed that it will contest most of the Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.
