Akhilesh, estranged uncle Shivpal come together before Uttar Pradesh polls

Lucknow, December 16

In a crucial development ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav Thursday met his uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav and announced an alliance with his Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia).

The meeting between the two leaders came almost five years after they parted ways following a bitter public power tussle that had led to Shivpal Yadav’s sacking as a minister in the Akhilesh Yadav cabinet in 2016.

Sources in the Samajwadi Party said its founder Mulayam Singh Yadav was also present at Shivpal Yadav’s residence before Akhilesh Yadav reached there.

“Met national president of PSPL and finalised the alliance. The SP’s policy to take along regional parties is strengthening the party and taking SP and its allies towards victory,” Akhilesh Yadav said in a tweet in Hindi after the meeting at his uncle’s residence.

He also shared a photo with Shivpal Yadav, 66.

Hundreds of supporters of the parties gathered outside Shivpal Yadav’s residence, raising the slogan of “Chacha-Bhatija zindabad”.

After their relation turned sour before the previous Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, Akhilesh Yadav became the SP president in January 2017. Shivpal Yadav had successfully contested the 2017 polls as an SP candidate but formed his own party in 2018.

The coming together of the two before the assembly polls due early next year assumes political significance as Akhilesh Yadav looks to take along smaller parties to take on the might of the BJP.

During the recent panchayat polls, the SP and PSPL had foght together in Etawah, where they won 18 out of 24 wards and the BJP could win one seat there.

Though Akhilesh Yadav announced the coming together of the two parties, there is no immediate word on seat-sharing arrangements between them.

Addressing a gathering on party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav’s birthday on November 22, Shivpal Yadav had demanded 100 seats (out of total 403) seats from the SP. According to SP sources, the party is not keen to give more than 10.

During the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Shivpal Yadav had contested from the Firozabad seat and was at the third place, but secured over 90,000 votes which, many said, led to SP candidate Akshay Yadav losing to the BJP candidate.

Shivpal Yadav’s party could not perform well but harmed the winning prospects of the SP candidates on several seats.

Reacting to the meeting between the two leaders, BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said it will have no adverse bearing on his party’s prospects in the polls.

“The BJP is going to form a majority government again in 2022 by winning over 300 seats. Whether there was a meeting of ‘Chacha’ -Bhatija’ or ‘Bua’ -‘Bhatija’ or SP or Congress or all of them, only lotus (BJP’s election symbol) will bloom,” he said.

Shivpal Yadav had earlier meetings with AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi and even Congress was in touch with him. But, the meeting during the day ended all speculations.

Aggressively positioning himself against the BJP, Akhilesh Yadav has already entered into alliances with the RLD and Om Prakash Rajbhar’s Suhaldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP).

The uncle-nephew reunion would also help in checking any possible erosion in the support base of the SP among the Yadav caste that constitutes around nine per cent of the state’s population. PTI