Akhilesh set to get longer tenure as SP president
The Samajwadi Party has decided to extend the term of its national president from existing three to five years, allowing former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav to fasten his grip over the party.
The move will mean that the party will face the 2019 Lok Sabha election and the 2022 assembly election under the leadership of Akhilesh.
“We have amended the party’s constitution to allow a five-year term for the new president,” SP’s chief spokesman Rajendra Choudhary told HT.
The 44-year-old alumnus of University of Sydney will be re-elected to the party’s top post during a convention of the Samajwadi Party in Agra on October 4-5.
Akhilesh took over the reins of the SP, replacing his father Mulayam Singh Yadav, on the eve of the assembly election after a bitter fight with uncle Shivpal Yadav.
SP is currently holding organisational elections at the lower levels, a process that has seen Akhilesh loyalists taking control of the party at the district level and downwards.
“The Agra convention will reiterate the party’s faith in Akhilesh,” a senior party func-
AKHILESH TOOK OVER THE REINS OF THE SP, REPLACING HIS FATHER MULAYAM SINGH YADAV, ON THE EVE OF THE ASSEMBLY ELECTION
tionary said, suggesting that the generational change in the party will be complete at Agra.
Unlike his father and uncle, Akhilesh has been a votary of ‘non-BJP forces should unite’ theory to contain the rise of PM Narendra Modi.
The convention, however, will skip the issue of political alliances and focus on presenting the Samajwadi Party as the credible alternative to BJP in Uttar Pradesh.
The meeting will discuss the strategy for 2019 Lok Sabha election and how to regain the ground it lost to the BJP in the assembly election.