Lucknow,May 29 (UNI) Infighting within the first family of the Samajwadi Party is expected to end soon as the party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav has intervened and asked his son and party's president Akhilesh Yadav to budge down and work together with his uncle Shivpal Yadav, who has left the party over the family feud and floated a new party, sources in the party said on Saturday.
"Sort out the feud,’’ Mulayam, as per the sources, asked Akhilesh in a meeting, also attended by Shivpal, earlier this week in New Delhi.
The meeting assumes significance in view of the 2022 UP Assembly elections. The SP has suffered three back-to-back defeats at the hands of the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, 2017 UP Assembly elections, and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Though nothing substantial was achieved in the meeting, sources said, but the two aggrieved parties have decided to meet again soon.
Akhilesh and Shivpal may come out with an agreement during the Navratra festival just before the assembly polls, sources said. Presently both the uncle and nephew are busy in the elections of block pramukhs and district panchayat chairmen.
Earlier this year, Akhilesh gave hints to accommodate his uncle by not fielding any candidate against latter from Jaswant Nagar Assembly seat in Etawah district. He had also announced to give a berth in the Cabinet to Shivpal if the SP comes to power in 2022.
Mulayam is also said to have advised his son to work for enlarging the electoral base of the party beyond the traditional Muslim-Yadav constituency.
"Mulayam Singh had realised the limitations of the M-Y combine during his active days in politics and had attracted leaders from the non-Yadav communities in the OBCs to enlarge the base of the SP, a senior SP leader said.
Shivpal has proved to be damage to the SP in the 2017 Assembly elections and 2019 Lok Sabha polls as it cost the SP seats in the home turf of the Yadav belt Agra-Etawah region.Shivpal soon after the 2017 UP Assembly polls had floated his own party, the Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia), after his fallout with Akhilesh and fought the SP to the bitter finish.
"If Akhilesh doesn’t makeup with Shivpal, it can adversely impact the SP’s prospects again on home ground. Unlike Akhilesh’s other uncle and Rajya Sabha MP, Ramgopal Yadav, who spent the better part of his political career in Delhi, Shivpal rose through the ranks and created a niche for himself. To that extent, he’s more of an asset for the SP than Ramgopal’’, said an SP leader close to the first family of the party.
The SP under the leadership of Akhilesh is reaching out to the smaller parties wedded to caste-specific identity politics, sources said.
As of now, Akhilesh has cemented alliances with the Rashtriya Lok Dal in western UP and the Mahan Dal, which primarily represents the backward castes Maurya, Shakhya, Saini and Kushwaha that are largely with the BJP since 2014.
The emergence of the Bhagidari Sankalp Morcha, an alliance of eight parties, each of whom speaks for unrepresented and undocumented backward castes, lends another dimension to UP politics. It is helmed by Om Prakash Rajbhar, the leader of the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP), who had tied up with the BJP in 2017 and became a Cabinet Minister in the Adityanath government.
He was dismissed from the Yogi Adityanath soon after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections for his diatribes against the BJP leadership.
For the last two years, Rajbhar is in a desperate search of new allies and forged an umbrella of parties such as the Rashtra Uday Party (of the Gadariya or shepherds), Rashtriya Upekshit Samaj Party (of the Kumhar or potters) and Bharat Mata Party (of the Bind or fisherfolk) along with Asauddin Obaisi led AIMIM.
The SP might think of including Rajbhar in its party fold, sources added.
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