Nephew vs Uncle fight: Mulayam Singh prefers brother over son

As an uncle, Shivpal Yadav had often ferried his young nephew to school on a scooter. But that was in the late 70’s. The young nephew is now in the driver’s seat and wishes to lay down his own rules of politics. The uncle’s political tactics, which shaped the Samajwadi Party over the years, have been put to rest.

With patriarch Mulayam Singh being slowed by age, an undeclared struggle for power has started within the first family of the Samajwadi Party. Only, that this could not have come at a worse time for the party, when it is readying for the Uttar Pradesh polls to be held in a few months from now.

From day one, there has been an internal tussle between the old guard and the young chief minister with the latter having to concede ground to the former on more than one occasion at the instance of his father.

In the latest father-son slugfest, Mulayam Singh has weighed in on the side of his brother Shivpal Yadav, a senior minister who is apparently unhappy with the continuance of corrupt leaders and officers in the administration.

It is passing strange that Mulayam Singh has not been able to deal with crisis, ie seek through the proper channels the removal of the corrupt officials and leaders if he wants to. In the past, he has refused to act against people like Azam Kham who have repeatedly brought disgrace to the party with their ugly comments and actions.

While there was a severe cold wave in UP last year, several UP ministers and MLAs went on a junket around Europe and Dubai. When questioned, Azam Khan sought to communalise the issue saying that people could not bear to see a Muslim representing India abroad.

This was all the more incredulous considering all the photographs of the trip showed the political worthies sailing around rivers in Europe on luxury boats and staggering out of shops weighed down by packages.

As long as the CM is in the saddle, it is counterproductive for him to be publicly upbraided by his own party chief and father. This can only create a further crisis of confidence in the SP and among the people.

The unmoved Akhilesh

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is much confident that SP would again form government in the state.

“Samajwadi Party will form government in the state again (in 2017). What I can say is that SP will government again in the state due to the development works initiated by it,” Akhilesh told reporters, avoiding a direct reply when asked on the merger of mafia- turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s party Quami Ekta Dal.

The pulling down factors

With elections coming up, the SP will have to do much more than engage in these worn gimmicks. The crime rate in UP is going up. The Bulandshar rape has hit national headlines. The death of a baby because his parents could not pay a bribe at a government hospital also made way to top headlines. Instead of dealing with these problems, the rape was sought to be politicised by the SP and other parties.

Arrows in their arsenal

With barely a few months left for the crucial assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP-led NDA and its chief opposition Congress seemed to have taken a lead over state parties Samajwadi Party and Bahujang Samajwadi Party in poll preparations.

BJP

Amit Shah has begun touring the state by meeting booth presidents’ from Kanpur (of Kanpur-Bundelkhand region) on June 4, followed by Kasganj (Braj), Meerut (Paschim), Barabanki (Awadh), Basti (Gorakhpur) and Jaunpur (Kashi). Shah also addressed a Dalits convention in Lucknow on June 4, a Jan Swabhiman rally in Varanasi onJuly 2 and ‘Ati dalit-ati-pichda mahapanchayat’ (extreme Dalit-most backward meet) in Mau on July 9.

With a focus on backward caste voters, Shah also announced alliance with OBC-backed Apna Dal and Suheldeo Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) for the 2017 polls.

Bahujan Samaj Party

BSP was the first political party that started preparations for the 2017 assembly elections by declaring its candidates as early as 2015. It was in a strong position against the SP and BJP until the roles were reversed with the exit of the party’s OBC face Swami Prasad Maurya and Dalit leader RK Chaudhary. Both accused Mayawati of ‘auctioning’ party tickets for assembly polls and their exit was followed by Ravindra Nath Tripathi and Paramdev Yadav.

In a damage control exercise, the BSP has selected five of its leaders, all from different backward castes for leading the party’s outreach campaign in their respective caste groups. The five leaders are former MLCs R S Kushwaha, Pratap Singh Baghel, Virendra Singh Chauhan, former MP R K Singh and MLC Suresh Kashyap.

Congress

Congress’ top two leaders — AICC president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi — are Lok Sabha members from UP and both have limited their presence in the state to their respective constituencies, Rae Bareli and Amethi, in past two years. After appointing Ghulam Nabi Azad as in-charge of UP, the party has picked actor-turned politician Raj Babbar as the new state chief and appointed four leaders as senior vice-presidents. The second rung in UP include former MP Rajesh Mishra (Brahmin) from Varanasi, OBC leader Raja Ram Pal, Scheduled Caste leader Bhagwati Prasad Chaudhary and controversial Muslim leader of western UP Imran Masood.

Samajawadi Party 

With Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav at the helm, the SP is turning out to be the least active of the four big parties preparing for assembly polls. The party began its poll preparations on March 24 by releasing a list of 142 candidates for seats where party had lost in the 2012 election. But for the past one month, SP leaders have been locked in an internal battle.

On June 21, SP’s newly appointed state in-charge Shivpal Singh Yadav announced the merger of QED, but Akhilesh, who was against the move, expressed his ‘displeasure’ by sacking minister Balram Yadav, who initiated talks with QED. On June 25, SP’s Central Parliamentary Party called off the merger and convinced CM to re-induct Balram in cabinet.