All’s not well in Samajwadi Party bastion, reports of rift between nephew and uncle, again
Ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections Akhilesh Yadav and Shivpal Yadav had come together after a 5-year separation
Months after the uncle-nephew duo of Akhilesh Yadav and Shivpal Yadav mended their differences and came together to fight against the Yogi Adityanath government, the reports of a strain in their relationship have emerged again.
The Samajwadi Party could only secure 111 seats in the 403-seat strong Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha. However, it emerged as the second-largest party after BJP which won 255 seats and retained power. The Samajwadi Party will form the main opposition in the state assembly.
To assume the role of leader of the opposition Akhilesh Yadav resigned as Lok Sabha MP of Azamgarh after he won his first state assembly election from Karhal. Akhilesh was unanimously elected for the key post in the meeting organized by senior MLAs of the party. The reports of the rift between him and Shivpal came to light when the latter was not invited to the aforementioned meeting.
Shivpal, who won from the Jaswantnagar seat on an SP ticket alleged that he was not invited to the meeting. He said, “I was not invited to the party meeting. I waited for two days and cancelled all my programmes for the meeting, but I wasn’t invited. I am an MLA from Samajwadi Party but still not invited.”
Earlier in 2016, the relationship between the two had turned sour when Shivpal who was Uttar Pradesh party president back then suspended seven youth leaders, including three MLCs who were Akhilesh’s loyalists. Shivpal later went his own way and founded Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia). The two sorted out differences in December and formed an SP-PSP(L) alliance to take on the saffron party but the recent developments have again led to questions on the future of their alliance.
