In their first one-to-one meeting since the vertical split in the Samajwadi Party, Shivpal Yadav on Friday held talks with his defiant nephew Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav here on a “compromise formula” for a possible patch-up.
Party insiders were tight-lipped about what transpired at the brief meeting between the two.
Mr. Shivpal later met his brother and Mr. Akhilesh's father Mulayam Singh Yadav.
However, sources privy to the fast-paced developments did not rule out the possibility of resignation of Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh, the “outsider” whose return to the SP triggered a storm in the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh, under a “compromise formula“.
Another possibility could be the resignation of Mr. Shivpal from the post of State SP chief, a charge held by the Chief Minister before the current family feud broke out.
It was the first meeting between Mr. Akhilesh and Mr. Shivpal since the Chief Minister donned the mantle of SP chief replacing Mr. Mulayam.
An inkling of a patch-up came late on Thursday night, when Mr. Akhilesh planned to go to the airport in Lucknow to receive his father, but dropped the idea when he came to know that Mr. Amar Singh was accompanying Mr. Mulayam in the chartered flight.
Soon after Mr. Mulayam’s return from Delhi, his apolitical brothers, Abhayram Yadav and Rajpal Yadav, met him apparently to end the strife in the family.
During a meeting with party MLAs, MLCs, MPs and senior leaders to collect their signed affidavits for submission before the Election Commission, Mr. Akhilesh on Thursday asked his father to give him the SP's control for three months.
The meetings Mr. Shivpal had with Mr. Akhilesh and later with Mr. Mulayam reflected hectic behind the scenes negotiations as the Akhilesh camp prepared to hand over documents to the Election Commission to claim that it was the “real” SP.
Leader of the Akhilesh camp Ramgopal Yadav claimed they have collected signatures of 212 of the 229 MLAs, 56 of the 68 MLCs, 15 of the 24 MPs and a majority of the 5,000 delegates, “making it crystal clear as to which was the real SP”.
