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On his birthday, Mulayam brings up Babri demolition, justifies firing on kar sewaks
SP leader lauds Akhilesh, holds leaders close to him responsible for party’s defeat in UP assembly election.
Samajwadi Party (SP) founder Mulayam Singh Yadav chose his 79th birthday on Wednesday to invoke the Babri mosque demolition in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 to explain why and how the party lost the UP assembly election earlier this year despite the exemplary work that his ‘good son’ Akhilesh Yadav had done during his tenure as the chief minister of the state.
Attending his first party’s event at the SP headquarters since January when the Yadav family’s political feud had peaked, Mulayam said: “I had ordered firing on kar sewaks marching towards the Babri Masjid (in 1990). Twenty-eight of them had died and 84 were injured. I won 98 seats in the 1991 (assembly) election and seven in by-polls. So, the party had a tally of 105 seats. Then, I chose to resign and subsequently formed the Samajwadi Party (in 1992). I came back to power in the 1993 assembly election.”
“How could the Samajwadi Party win only 47 seats (in this year’s polls) despite the exemplary work by my son and the then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav did?” Mulayam asked.
Answering his own question, he held “certain leaders whom Akhilesh had elevated to positions in the party and his cabinet responsible for not getting the party votes.”
“One of the leaders could not get more than nine votes for the party in his village even though his own family has 51 voters. Such a leader betrayed Akhilesh and the party,” he said.
The three-time former UP chief minister also held the party’s youth outfits responsible for the defeat.
Contrasting the zeal of youth workers now with those who served the party in its initial years, he said after demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya the party’s youth activists had worked hard to tell people the ground reality. But the party did not have such youth workers now, he said.
“All this must change. I don’t want to see the Samajwadi Party weak. It’s time to make the party strong again,” he said.
Justifying the firing on kar sewaks, he said he had told former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Parliament if even more people were required to be killed for the country’s unity and integrity, the security forces would have done it.
Before his speech, Mulayam was all smiles as party leaders and workers greeted him on his birthday. He cut a cake and pushed away party national vice president Kiranmoy Nanda’s hand as Nanda attempted to feed him a slice. Instead, Mulayam took a piece of the cake and first made Akhilesh eat it out of his hand. Akhilesh then draped a shawl around Mulayam’s shoulders and touched his feet.
Describing Akhilesh as a good boy who had been a good chief minister, he said: “He is my son first, a leader later. My blessings were with him before, they are with him now and will be with him ever after.”
Last year, the Yadav family’s political feud was at its peak around this time. Two factions, one led by Mulayam’s brother Shivpal Yadav and the other by Akhilesh Yadav, had planned events to celebrate Mulayam’s birthday separately. But the celebrations were called off after a train accident near Kanpur killed over 100 people. The death of former UP chief minister Ram Naresh Yadav the day before Mulayam’s birthday was another reason for the event to be scrapped.
Less than few months later, on January 1, an emergency convention of the party displaced Mulayam as the party’s national president and gave Akhilesh the reins of the organisation.
Though power tussle appears to have been put on the back burner for now, Shivpal stayed away from Mulayam’s birthday celebrations in Lucknow, choosing to be in Etawah instead.
After Akhilesh’s re-election as the party’s national president early last month, both Mulayam and Shivpal Yadav had congratulated him.
Two days before Akhilesh’s re-election as the party president at the Agra convention, Mulayam had set aside the tentative plans to float a party and called for strengthening the SP.
Family members and close friends had also held celebrations at Mulayam’s residence on the birthday eve on Tuesday night where his family members, including his wife Sadhna Yadav, younger daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav, granddaughter Prathma and family friends were present.
The road to the party headquarters on Vikramaditya Marg was decked up on the occasion.
Mulayam was born on November 22, 1939, in Saifai village of Etawah district in Uttar Pradesh.
