Mulayam Singh Yadav, one of India's most senior opposition politicians and a three-time Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, has died at 82. His son Akhilesh Yadav tweeted, "my respected father and everyone's Neta-ji has died."
The founder of the Samajwadi Party, Mulayam Singh served as India's Defence Minister between 1996 and 1998. "Neta-ji" - as even his son Akhilesh Yadav called him - had been away from the national stage in recent years, as he battled ill health. Even in hospital, he had several political visitors in his final days.
The former wrestler rose in Uttar Pradesh politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s when an agitation over the Mandal Commission set up to identify the socially or educationally backward classes in India was at its peak. During the protests, backward caste leaders like Mulayam Singh and Bihar's Lalu Yadav emerged as political stalwarts across the Hindi belt.
In his first term as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh was engulfed in the politics of "Mandal and Mandir (temple)". In 1990, he ordered police firing on kar sewaks or Hindu activists marching to Ayodhya for a grand Ram temple at the site of the Babri mosque. Sixteen people were killed.
It marked the beginning of the "Muslim-Yadav" axis in north Indian politics - a potent combination in elections.
In the years to come, Mulayam Singh would establish a reputation for partnering not just with friends, but also rivals - like arch enemy Mayawati.
In 1996, he broke into the national stage, becoming Defence Minister in the United Front government at the Centre.
Three years later, after the fall of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, Mr Yadav decided not to support Sonia Gandhi's famous "We have 272" comment even after initially assuring her of his party's support. It is counted as one of Sonia Gandhi's biggest blunders and was chalked up to her relative inexperience.
In 2003, when he returned as Chief Minister, his partnership with Amar Singh meant a reconfiguring of his ideology and alliances.
In 2012, when the Samajwadi Party returned to power in UP, Mulayam Singh handed charge to his son Akhilesh, who became one of the country's youngest Chief Ministers. But his public statements frustrated Akhilesh Yadav's attempts to transform the image of the Samajwadi Party and the friction was evident.
As fissures within the family widened, Mulayam Singh left everyone shocked when he expelled Akhilesh Yadav in 2016, just before the crucial 2017 assembly elections in UP. Father and son later patched up, with Akhilesh emerging as the power centre of Samajwadi Party.
The Samajwadi Party lost those elections.
In 2019, Akhilesh Yadav took a cue from his father and formed an alliance for the national election with Mayawati, whom he called "Bua (father's sister)". But the collaboration flopped, and the rivals separated again, bitterly.
As opposition forces struggle to mount a united fight against the BJP in 2024, Mulayam Singh Yadav will be remembered as someone who changed the political landscape of the Hindi belt in general and UP in particular.
