Ramgopal can never hobnob with communal forces: Naresh
Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Naresh Agarwal has supported Ram Gopal Yadav who was ousted as the Samajwadi Party (SP) national general secretary after party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s brother Shivpal Yadav accused him of hobnobbing with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“I don’t think this is correct. Ram Gopalji can never hobnob with communal forces,” he told a news channel. He said the party must identify ‘forces’ that had pitted ‘father against son’ and a ‘brother against brother’.
“This is the time for the party to enter the electoral battlefield and defeat rivals instead of engaging in a family feud,” he said.
Interestingly, sources told HT that before going into the meeting with his party loyalists and lawmakers, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had tried to talk to party veteran and senior minister Azam Khan, a known baiter of party MP Amar Singh.
Sources said that Khan who was in Rampur, however, couldn’t take the CM’s call then and by the time he returned the call, Akhilesh had gone into the crucial meeting where he reportedly asserted that he was the true inheritor of ‘Netaji’s legacy’ and directed his supporters to stand by his beleaguered father. Shortly after the CM’s decision to go after ‘Amar backers’ including uncle Shivpal, Khan broke his studied silence on the issue. “It’s unfortunate. We knew this would happen. Just one person is responsible for all this,” he said in an obvious reference to Amar. Azam had backed the CM when the latter had hinted at the involvement of ‘baharis’ (outsiders) in fuelling the family feud – a
LUCKNOW:
remark that was targeted at Amar. On Sunday, he was more forthcoming. “The decision on whom to keep in the cabinet is the sole prerogative of the chief minister. But the developments have been quite upsetting for someone like me who has seen the party develop from scratch,” Khan said from Rampur. The veteran, who was briefly removed from the party following differences with Amar, was quickly re-inducted into the party ahead of the 2012 UP polls which was won by the SP.
Meanwhile, Shadab Fatima, said it was the CM’s prerogative to choose whom he wanted to keep in his ministry. “He did whatever he felt right,” Fatima said.