A day after Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav claimed all was well in his party and family, there were flashes of the simmering tension among members of his clan on Wednesday.
If SP State president Shivpal Yadav expelled from the party a Minister close to Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, moments later, the Chief Minister sparked a major speculation by calling on Governor Ram Naik.
Mr. Yadav was convening a meeting of senior party members and legislators on the details of his proposed Samajwadi Vikas Rath Yatra scheduled for November 3, 2016, when he suddenly left for the Governor’s House.
Mr. Yadav briefed the Governor on the prevailing political situation but the details of the meeting were not known. Some observers guessed that Mr. Yadav might have submitted a list of MLAs in his support to Mr. Naik, amid the BJP’s accusations that a “constitutional crisis” prevailed in the State due to the infighting in the Yadav clan.
The meeting could have also been related to the Ministers sacked recently and the vacancies arisen from it.
In retaliation for the expulsion of his close aide and MLC, Udayveer Singh, Mr. Akhilesh Yadav had on Sunday sacked four senior Ministers, including his uncle Mr. Shivpal Yadav. The Raj Bhawan officially termed it as a “courtesy call".
"Mr. Yadav also wished Mr. Naik on the festival of Diwali,” a Raj Bhawan spokesperson said.
There were also signs that there would not be any rapprochement between Mr. Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle as Mr. Shivpal Yadav on Wednesday vacated his official residence 7, Kalidas Marg in Lucknow. Mr. Shivpal Yadav's ministerial tag was also removed from the residence and the red beacon on his vehicle surrendered. In a press conference on Tuesday Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav has said he left it to the Chief Minister to decide if Mr. Shivpal Yadav would be brought back into the Ministry.
Mr. Shivpal Yadav later on Wednesday flew to Delhi to present invites to parties belonging to the erstwhile Janta Parivar for the SP’s silver jubilee celebrations on November 5, 2016 in signs of a possible formulation at an alliance.
Cracking the whip, Mr. Shivpal Yadav expelled Minister of State for forests Tez Narayan Pandey aka Pavan Pandey for allegedly slapping Ashu Malik, a party MLC, and more importantly a close aide of party boss Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav. Mr. Shivpal Yadav also wrote to the CM requesting that he sack the Minister. But there was no action from the CM’s end till late Wednesday.
Mr. Pandey, MLA from Ayodhya, was punished for “indiscipline,” Mr. Shivpal Yadav said announcing his dismissal.
Mr. Malik had alleged that Mr. Pandey slapped him twice at the CM’s residence where he had gone to clarify on a newspaper article, which had escalated the tension between Mr. Akhilesh Yadav and his father in the all-important party meeting a few minutes earlier on Monday. The article had referred to Mr. Akhilesh Yadav as Aurangzeb and Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav as Shahjahan.
Mr. Pandey said the allegation against him was false.
Though the CM was not present at the location at the time of the incident, it gave the BJP fodder to question the law and situation in the State. “If a ruling MLC is not safe in the CM’s house, what will happen to the common man,” BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak asked.
The BJP plans to exploit the family feud in the SP by targeting its base, Etawah, where party president Amit Shah will hold a rally on Thursday. The venue, Numaish Maidan is less than 20 km from Saifai, the ancestral village of Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav.
