Akhilesh will be SP’s CM candidate: Senior leader

“Election will be contested under the guidance of Akhilesh Yadav and Mulayan Singh Yadav. Akhilesh Yadav will remain the chief ministerial candidate,” the party’s Rajya Sabha lawmaker said. The Samajwadi Party leader also said “if there is any outsider, who is interfering, he should stop immediately”. His remarks came after differences among the members in the Yadav family became public, with Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav removed his uncle and Cabinet Minister Shivpal Yadav from key ministerial portfolios. This happened hours after Mulayam Singh Yadav replaced Akhilesh Yadav with Shivpal Yadav as the party’s state unit chief. 

Agarwal’s remark referring to an “outsider” came a day after Akhilesh too spoke in similar vein. The lawmaker, however, asserted that there were no differences in the party. “We will follow the decision of Netaji and the Chief Minister has the right to allot portfolios,” he said and downplayed Mulayam Singh Yadav’s decision to replace Akhilesh Yadav as state party chief.

With party leaders critical of Amar Singh’s alleged role in the current feud in Mulayam Singh Yadav’s family, senior SP leader Shivpal Yadav defended him by saying an organisation is strengthened by taking everyone along. Asked about other SP leaders’ “unhappiness” with Amar Singh, Shivpal said, “Taking everyone along makes an organisation stronger. There are all kinds of people in a party. One has to apply his mind also. If everyone becomes intelligent, all of them will be CM or netaji. Everyone cannot be Akhilesh or Mulayam,” he told reporters at his residence. Earlier in the day Ram Gopal Yadav was riled by questions on Amar Singh. “There is nothing like mulayamwadi. If someone is not Samajwadi, how can he be mulayamwadi,” he said in response to queries on Singh, who was expelled in 2010 and rejoined the party a few months ago. Apparently attacking Singh, Ram Gopal said that due to “simplicity” of Mulayam, “those who have nothing to do with party’s interest are able to take benefit”. 

When asked about Ram Gopal’s statement that he was made party state incharge though there was no provision in the party for the same, Shivpal said, “The party president can take any decision. It is there in the party constitution.” Asked about losing important portfolios, he said, “I cannot raise questions on which circumstances the Chief Minister has changed my departments. It is his discretion. I have a big responsibility. It is bigger than getting portfolios. We have to form a majority government in the state in 2017. I was state president in 2011 and now netaji (Mulayam) has once again given me this responsibility. No one has the capacity to disobey what he says.”