Mulayam Singh Yadav can certainly tell friends from foes. In the Samajwadi Party dispute that was before the Election Commission of India, the important thing for him was to ensure that the party symbol, the bicycle, did not get frozen. That would have helped neither him nor his son, Akhilesh Yadav, who is leading the split in the SP; worse, it would have paved the way for his principal rival, the BJP, to return to power given the serious disadvantages of fighting an election with a symbol that is unfamiliar to the electorate. By not battling hard for the bicycle symbol, and not submitting before the ECI any affidavit to show his support among elected representatives and party office-bearers, he may be perceived as letting down his own faction in the party. But his first priority was not winning the battle inside his extended family, but beating his political opponents in the larger war. The surrender of the symbol would have effectively ended the SP’s fight in the election. Both father and son knew this, and carefully averted such an eventuality. Mr. Akhilesh Yadav responded to his father’s gesture by seeking his blessings, and Mr. Mulayam Singh sent his son a list of his faction’s candidates who needed to be accommodated. The SP is not in self-destruct mode. Both factions are playing their cards on the basis of cold calculations, not hot-headed impulse.
The split, and the retention of the election symbol, appear to have compensated in some measure for the party’s failings on the governance front over the last five years. Mr. Akhilesh Yadav is now able to seek a fresh mandate on his own terms; moreover, he can, with some degree of credibility, blame the shortcomings on the party’s old guard. Also, an alliance with the Congress i s now very much within the realm of possibility. Mr. Mulayam Singh was averse to a tie-up, but Mr. Akhilesh Yadav seems to enjoy a better rapport with the Congress leadership. The SP only gained from the split, and it might have lost nothing at all in terms of organisational muscle. After giving up the fight for the symbol, Mr. Mulayam Singh does not seem too eager to take the fight with his son to the polling booths, so long as his loyalists got their share of seats. In a State known for strategic voting, where voter polarisation with the BJP at one extreme is now a reality, the SP might have benefited by merely pushing itself ahead of the BSP as a principal contender. That much Mr. Akhilesh Yadav appears to have done for himself and the party. But the question is whether he can bank entirely on his promise for the future, and erase public memory of his past performance.
