UP Polls 2017: Mulayam Singh Yadav will address his first rally in brother, Shivpal Yadav's constituency.
Highlights
- Mulayam Singh Yadav to address rally in his brother's constituency
- He is also slated to speak at a rally for daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav
- First rally after his son Akhilesh Yadav took over the reins of the party
When Samajwadi Party mentor Mulayam Singh Yadav gets up to speak at a rally in Takha, his brother Shivpal Yadav's assembly constituency Jaswantnagar this afternoon, it will be the first, and probably one of the two election rallies he will address over the next few days. The other rally, is slated for his younger daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav, in the Lucknow cantonment seat in Uttar Pradesh's Capital.
This will also be Mulayam's first election rally after a number of flip-flops on whether he would campaign for the Samajwadi Party after his son Akhilesh Yadav took over the reins of the party. Today's rally coincides with the first phase of polling in the state that will vote in seven phases ending March 8. Jaswantnagar will go to polls in the third phase, on February 19.
"I am not sure he is addressing any other rallies apart from Jaswantnagar. He had some plans for Mainpuri but they have been cancelled," said a leader close to the senior Yadav, who said he doesn't want to be identified. The Mainpuri assembly seat is one of the five segments that make up for the parliamentary constituency, also called Mainpuri, that has voted for Mulayam Singh Yadav or his nominee since 1996.
Over the last six months, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has gained complete control over the party that his father founded in the nineties and is the party's national president. As he went ahead to stitch an alliance with the Congress, Mulayam made his displeasure known again when he suggested that he would not campaign for the SP-Congress alliance.
Shivpal, till recently the party's key strategist before he was sidelined in the bitter power struggle that saw the transfer of the power within the party from Mulayam to son, Akhilesh - is fighting from his traditional seat, Jaswantnagar that he won by 1.3 lakh votes in 2012 - but he is not even a star campaigner for the party.
For many SP candidates, neither is Mulayam.
An Akhilesh aide said there hadn't been too many requests from candidates who want Mulayam to campaign for them. "It's because of two reasons - one they don't want to rub Akhilesh the wrong way. Two, they believe that Akhilesh has the popular vote even within the party," the aide said.
With inputs from PTI