SP is Mulayam’s ambitious dream come true

Samajwadi Party was born out of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s strained ties with VP Singh. That was early 90s and both were in Janata Dal. While VP was the prime minister, Mulayam was UP’s chief minister. However the two never shared a cordial ties and its genesis lay in the previous decade when Singh was the UP CM and Mulayam a firebrand Lok Dal MLA.
Old-timers recall that both would have frequent run-ins on the issue of anti-dacoits operations in the Chambal.After 1984, Singh became the finance minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet. However, when he deserted the Congress government and took to the streets on Bofors issue, he found a potent ally in Mulayam. The two later became part of the Janata Dal. After 1989 elections, VP became the PM with BJP support and Mulayam UP chief minister, with complete majority. The inherent discomfort, however, never went away, say political observers.
Barely one and a half years into power, the Janata Dal government ran into a rough weather on Mandal and Ram temple issue. When LK Advani’s rath was stopped in Bihar, BJP withdrew support to the Centre and VP Singh government was left tottering . Soon Chandrashekhar, who had already staked claimed to the PMship after the LS polls in 1989, too, parted ways with a group of MPs and formed Samajwadi Janata Party. He also became the PM with Congress’s support.
Back in Lucknow, Mulayam, who was enjoying majority, too, broke his ties with VP Singh and went with the SJP. Here, too, Congress extended an outside support. When a desperate Congress withdrew support to Chandrashekhar, Mulayam, too, got an indication and recommended dissolution of the assembly. In the state elections held thereafter, BJP emerged as a clear winner.
However, having already tasted power, was busy strategising for a rerun -- independently. The first thing that he did was to set himself free from the SJP and floated his own Samajwadi Party in November 1992. The band of brothers that supported him included socialist leaders like Janeswhar Mishra, Beni Prasad Verma, Azam Khan, Ram Shankar Kaushik, Brij Bhushan Tewari, Ram Sharan Das and Bhagwati Singh.
The beginning was not without hiccups. When the newly formed party was having its first meeting on November 4 and 5 at Lucknow, Beni didn’t attend it. He was reportedly not in favour of quitting the SJP. However, later he came around. At the two-day convention, Mulayam declared himself the national president and revealed the flag, election symbol bicycle and motto of the party. Prominent socialist leaders of the country, including Kapildev Singh and Laxmi Sahu from Bihar, Hukum Singh of Haryana, Gopal Krishnan from Tamil Nadu, then West Bengal ministers Kiranmoy Nanda and Pramod Sinha, and others joined the party at the convention.
Its first test came soon as the fall of BJP government in UP post Babri demolition necessitated the polls in 1993. Mulayam formed an alliance with the Kanshi Ram’s BSP. The two became close friends and SP-BSP together not only formed the first government of Dalits and backwards, but also Mulayam ensured that Kanshi Ram won comfortably from Etawah Lok Sabha constituency.
With the slogan “Mile Mulayam-Kanshi Ram, hawa mein ud gaye Jai Shri Ram” the two regional outfits made national players like BJP and Congress look redundant in UP and Mulayam became a chief minister for the second time. Although SP-BSP divorce was formalised soon, the two continue to share power in UP alternately.