The ongoing war within the Samajwadi Party (SP) intensified further on Thursday when SP general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav was thrown out of Ram Manohar Lohia Trust by party patron Mulayam Singh Yadav and replaced by senior party leader Shivpal Singh Yadav.

Ram Gopal, a close aide of SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav, was the secretary of the Trust.

Although Akhilesh is also a member of the Trust, neither he nor the other members of his camp, participated in the meeting of the Trust, which was held here on Thursday under the chairmanship of Mulayam. Ram Gopal, Azam Khan and Mulayam's nephew Dharmendra Yadav all are also members of the Trust but they too remained absent.

Sources close to Mulayam said that the latter could, in the days to come, take a decision about setting up a separate outfit with Shivpal. ''Akhilesh is not ready to accommodate Shivpal and his loyalists under any circumstances,'' said a senior leader, who was considered close to Mulayam.

Akhilesh, according to the sources, is all set to be re-elected the national president of the SP at its forthcoming national convention at Agra on October five.

It was not yet clear if SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav would take part in the convention. Sources said that Mulayam might boycott the same. It also remains unclear if Shivpal would be invited to take part in the convention. ''I have not yet received the invitation,'' Shivpal said on Thursday.

Akhilesh and Shivpal had fallen out a few months before the assembly polls in the state and the former, then the chief minister had sacked the latter from the ministry. In the subsequent days the SP infighting intensified further and Akhilesh, at a hurriedly convened National Convention of the SP, also ousted Mulayam from the post of national president and anointed himself as the national president.

Samajwadi Party 'family war' intensifies