Shivpal opens new front in SP politics

Dissident Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav said on Friday he will form, within three months, an all-India secular front that will be led by his brother and former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The 62-year-old leader didn’t make it clear if he was walking out of the Samajwadi Party to form the Samajwadi Secular Morcha (SSM). Neither did he specify if the new front will enter electoral politics.

If Shivpal forms a new party and the Samajwadi Party expels him then he will remain an unattached state lawmaker. He can be disqualified only if he resigns from the SP or defies the party whip during a vote in the state assembly.

The development comes weeks after the Samajwadi Party suffered a bruising defeat in the state elections that was blamed on a months-long feud between Shivpal and his nephew Akhilesh Yadav over control of the party.

“For social justice, a secular front will be formed. Netaji (Mulayam) will be its national president,” Shivpal told reporters in Etawah, the Yadav clan’s bastion. “He is very much on the board. Without his blessings we would not have taken such a major step,” Shivpal told Hindustan Times.

The front will restore the lost honour of ‘Netaji’, he said. “The discussions will move to Lucknow from now on,” he added.

Yadav had announced that he would form his own outfit three days ago after he staged a sevenhour long dharna at Vaidpura police station over alleged police atrocities against the people. He had also warned SP leaders of mending their ways or else he would be compelled to form the outfit before the deadline of three months he had set.