Lucknow: A day after Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav declared that his brother Mulayam Singh Yadav will head a secular front to be formed by him, posters of ‘Samajwadi Secular Morcha’ surface in Uttar Pradesh’s capital.
The poster has the photographs of Mulayam and Shivpal. The poster, allegedly put up by SP leader Om Prakash alias Pappu Yadav, congratulates the party patriarch on the launch of ‘Samajwadi Secular Morcha’.
Shivpal, the estranged uncle of former UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, on Friday announced, “For social justice, the Samajwadi Secular Morcha will be formed and netaji (Mulayam) will be its national president,”
The senior SP leader made the announcement while addressing the reporters in Etawah, the bastion of the Yadav clan.
Fissures in the Samajwadi Party again resurfaced as Akhilesh said he came to know about his uncle’s decision via media.
Sidelined since 2016 when Akhilesh Yadav ousted him from the cabinet first and then divested him and Mulayam Singh of their posts in the Samajwadi Party, Shivpal Yadav said he was forced to form the new party to “restore Mulayam’s honour”.
Over the last one week, Shivpal Yadav had been attacking his nephew Akhilesh Yadav, asking him to return the Samajwadi Party’s national president’s post to Mulayam Singh.
“Akhilesh had promised to hand over the party’s reins to netaji. He should do that now and all of us will strengthen the SP. I had given him three months’ time. If he fails to hand over the charge of the party to netaji by then, I will form a new secular front,” he had said on Wednesday.
The SP had witnessed a bitter feud between uncle Shivpal and nephew Akhilesh in the run-up to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
Akhilesh Yadav had said after becoming the National President that he would restore the post after the assembly elections.
The Samajwadi Party suffered a huge setback in the assembly polls of February-March. It won just 47 seats as against the 228 it held in the outgoing 403-member assembly.
Shivpal Yadav has been daggers drawn with his nephew for many months after a bitter family feud and power struggle broke out in the 25-year-old Samajwadi Party.
He had threatened twice in the past to quit the party and float his own if “respect” was not shown to Mulayam Singh.
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