Samajwadi Party Shouldn't Allow Mafia To Join: Uncle Shivpal To Akhilesh Yadav

Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia) founder Shivpal Yadav said members of the mafia should not be taken into the Samajwadi Party and claimed that when he was in the Akhilesh Yadav-led outfit, such people were never allowed entry.

Shivpal Yadav had quit the Samajwadi Party after differences with his nephew Akhilesh Yadav and formed his own party.

"The mafia never came to the Samajwadi Party (SP). Mafias should not be taken. I had also not taken any. I was the state president and no mafia came to us. We never took Mukhtar Ansari," Shivpal Yadav told reporters in Lucknow on Wednesday evening.

He was asked about gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari's brother Sigbatullah Ansari joining the Samajwadi Party recently.

"I took Sigbatullah Ansari and Afzal Ansari in the Samajwadi Party but later they had to leave the SP," he said in an reference to Akhilesh Yadav, who was against their joining the party in 2016.

The BJP has attacked Akhilesh Yadav for taking Mukhtar Ansari's brother into his party, saying that the Samajwadi Party cannot run without the help of mafias.

Asked whether he would return to the Samajwadi Party, Shivpal Yadav said, "If I get due honour, I would consider returning to the Samajwadi family."
 

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