: Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav gave a miss to an event on Thursday where Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav distributed Yash Bharti awards to 73 renowned personalities in diverse fields, including social work, sports and literature.
The Yash Bharti awards were started by the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in 1994-95 but was stopped by the previous BSP dispensation. It was reintroduced with the SP coming to power In 2012.
Mulayam was conspicuous by his absence from the function in the wake of the ongoing family feud in the party. Besides a memento and a cheque for Rs 11 lakh, the Yash Bharti awardees were given monthly pension of Rs 50,000.
The recipients included lyricist Santosh Anand, Naseerudin Shah, G Chodwhdury, Rakesh Kapoor, actor Saurabh Shukla, singer Anupama Raag, cricketers Piyush Chawla and Bhuvaneshwar Kumar, actress Simona Chakravarty, Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma.
Addressing the gathering, Akhilesh highlighted the achievements of his government and said the state government had honoured personalities from every field and acknowledge their achievements. PTI
