LUCKNOW: A day after the Election Commission’s verdict installed UP chief minister
Akhilesh Yadav as the president of the Samajwadi party,
Mulayam Singh Yadav surrendered to the new reality and accepted the political supremacy of his son.
In a public declaration of his acceptance of Akhilesh’s ascendancy, Mulayam handed him a list of around 38 candidates he wants accommodated as SP candidates, without any rider.
In political circles, Mulayam’s move is being likened to the signing of a surrender document. It showed that the veteran leader won’t be putting up his candidates if his demand of a meagre 38 seats was accepted. Sources said now that Akhilesh is the unchallenged party boss, he’s likely to take along the entire family, including those who opposed him in the internal feud that lasted more than four months.
“The EC’s Monday verdict has not only changed the hierarchy of the powerful Yadav family and SP, but also demolished Akhilesh’s image of being a captive in the hands of his uncles and father,” said a political analyst. “Mulayam’s defence at the poll panel that had started with a bang 15 days ago, ended with a whimper,” he added.
On Tuesday evening, Akhilesh met SP general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav at his residence here to finalise the list of candidates. The SP is likely to declare names of candidates for the first two phases of UP polls on Wednesday evening.
Earlier reports said Mulayam’s list included the name of Shivpal’s son Aditya from Jaswantnagar in Etawah and the SP founder’s ‘chhoti bahu’ Aparna Yadav from Lucknow Cantonment.
It was said that Shivpal, who has been winning from Jaswantnagar, didn’t want to contest as he was supposed to go to Central politics. But, the defeated former state SP chief later told his confidants that he would contest from Jaswantnagar.
Names of Shivpal and Aparna were part of the list Mulayam had released on December 28. Akhilesh came out with a separate list of 235 candidates the next day, in which he didn’t name candidates for Jaswantnagar and Lucknow Cantonment.
The list includes names of many Mulayam-Shivpal loyalists who had sided with them during the four-month-long family feud. These include former minister Om Prakash Singh, Narad Rai, Ambika Chaudhary and Shadaab Fatima.
Akhilesh is now ready to accommodate most of the names suggested by his father in the party’s final list in order to avoid fresh confrontations within the Yadav clan, sources said.