MSY talks unity but Shivpal says will contest all 80 UP seats
LUCKNOW/MEERUT: Two days after disgruntled Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Shivpal Yadav floated the Samajwadi Secular Morcha (SSM), SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Friday called upon the cadre to unitedly strengthen the party and said “the party and the family are one”.
However within hours of the SP patriarch’s statement, Shivpal, in an act of open defiance of his brother Mulayam, said his morcha would contest all the 80 seats of the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Shivpal informed reporters about his election plan when he was at the house of a supporter named Islam in Darkawda village of Baraut area in Baghpat district.
Shivpal had earlier sworn on many occasions that he would always stand by his brother and heed to his advice.
In Etawah, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, when asked about the Shivpal’s morcha, said: “Today I will not speak. I will just meet people.”
Mulayam, who visited the party office in Lucknow for the second consecutive day, said people should stop making speculations. “If workers have any suggestions, they should say it bluntly to party leaders. They should not gossip with each other. We, too, pay heed to workers’ suggestions and bring about improvements.”
Emphasizing on his statement of unity in the family, Mulayam said: “We five brothers are together. Even if we live in different places we all do farming together. You all too should keep your families together. In my time, workers used to keep the party’s red cap in their pockets and whenever and wherever an event happened they used to put on those caps.”
Mulayam was at the party office to attend a condolence meeting on the demise of former Shikohabad SP MLA Jhaulal.
› We five brothers are together. Even if we live in different places we all do farming together. You all too should keep your families together MULAYAM SINGH YADAV , SP patriarch
Shivpal said he formed the SSM as “senior leaders were being insulted and ignored in the Samajwadi Party since the past some time.” He also made it clear that his morcha had nothing to do with Amar Singh or the BJP.
Soon after announcing the formation of his own political party, Shivpal started a tour of western UP to build up his party organisation.
Later in Budhana, Muzaffarnagar, Shivpal said he formed the SSM to give a platform to those who were being ignored in the SP. Addressing a gathering of over 2000 people, Shivpal said he was suspended for no fault and now a conspiracy was being hatched against him with rumours that he is in contact with the BJP and was working for them.Shivpal minced no words in admitting that he voted in favour of BJP candidate Ramnath Kovind during the Presidential election “because Kovind personally telephoned him thrice to request for his vote.”
“The SP and Congress didn’t ask for my vote”, he said adding that he voted in favour of Jaya Bachchan for Rajya Sabha seat on the instructions of ‘Netaji’ (Mulayam).He added that whatever he was doing was to keep his and Netaji’s prestige intact. “Besides I also wanted to save the family,” he said.Targeting BJP government, he said that poor, labourers and farmers were being ignored in their rule. “In today’s system it has become difficult to get justice and we also need to improve the political environment,” he said.
Budhana is a Muslim-dominated area and it seems that Shivpal plans the make inroads into the SP votebank in favour of his morcha.
Meanwhile, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya said: “The BJP has nothing to do with SP feud. As far as the SSM is concerned, we hope it will be against ‘parivarvaad’ and ‘jaativaad’ that has come to be identified with the SP. So in that sense, we see it (formation of SSM) as a positive development.” (With inputs from Vasistha Bhardwaj in Muzaffarnagar)