SP feud akin to TDP revolt

Suresh Dharur

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Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, January 2

The family drama unfolding in the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh is eerily similar to a crisis that shook the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh in 1995.

The revolt in the TDP, founded by actor-turned-politician NT Rama Rao (NTR), had led to the split in the party and his eventual dethronement.

If the power struggle in the then combined Andhra Pradesh was between late NTR and his son-in-law N Chandrababu Naidu, it is between father Mulayam Singh Yadav and son Akhilesh Yadav in UP.

Like the warring duo in the then TDP, Mulayam and Akhilesh are now set to fight for the right over the party symbol — cycle. Incidentally, TDP, too, has the same symbol.

In a midnight political coup in August 1995, Chandrababu Naidu had led the revolt against his father-in-law to “save the party”. Like Akhilesh, he too had the support of majority of the legislators in the party. In the ensuing bitter legal battle, Naidu’s faction emerged victorious and retained the party symbol.

The template of the two political coups is more or less the same. At the heart of the feud in TDP was the alleged “evil influence” of NTR’s second wife Lakshmi Parvathi who had entered the thespian’s life as his biographer. Both got married in 1993, triggering a storm in the TDP’s first family. Her alleged interference in the party affairs had led to the crisis.

In the ongoing bitter family saga in UP, Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh is being projected as the villain by the Akhilesh camp. He has since been expelled from the party by the Akhilesh faction.