Absence of MSY, Akhilesh in Kalyan’s last rites triggers row

Lucknow: Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and national president Akhilesh Yadav may have ‘missed’ visiting the family of former chief minister Kalyan Singh to offer their condolences on the BJP veteran’s death, but the development triggered politics around their ‘absence’.
Attacking the SP leadership on the issue, BJP MP from Kannauj, Subrat Pathak, said their absence reflected their ‘Talibani’ mentality. According to political observers, the absence of Mulayam and Akhilesh got more ‘conspicuous’ as Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati visited Kalyan Singh’s family and paid floral tribute to the veteran leader.
Samajwadi Party, however, dismissed the issue as an unnecessary controversy accusing the BJP of making an ‘event’ out of something as serious as the demise of a senior and respected leader. SP insiders said Akhilesh was in Saifai on Saturday evening when Kalyan Singh was pronounced dead by doctors at SGPGI in Lucknow where he was undergoing treatment for quite some time. “The SP chief expressed his heartfelt condolences on Twitter minutes after the news came in. He later spoke to Kalyan Singh’s son, Rajveer, over the phone as well. He is about to visit him personally soon,” said a well-informed senior SP leader. “By the time the SP chief returned to Lucknow on Sunday after attending his pre-scheduled engagements in Saifai, Kalyan Singh’s mortal remains had been flown to his hometown in Aligarh,” he added.
“Mulayam had joined hands with Kalyan Singh when the latter had quit the BJP and later parted ways. It is highly unlikely that political differences were the reasons that prompted Mulayam and Akhilesh to distance themselves,” a political observer said. According to sources in the SP, office-bearers of the party’s district unit had been directed to attend the last rites of Kalyan Singh in Aligarh.