‘Akhilesh betrayed me but no plans to float new party’
MULAYAM SPEAKS SP patriarch suggests mending differences with son and former UP CM LUCKNOW:
Samajwadi Party (SP) patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Monday termed his son Akhilesh Yadav a betrayer but said he would not form a new party.
Addressing a press conference at the Lohia Trust office near SP headquarters here, Mulayam said: “A son has betrayed his father. He had said that three months after the elections he will return the party presidentship to me but he didn’t. He did not keep his words.”
“A man who can’t keep his words, can’t succeed,” he said but added that he was “not forming any new party as of now”.
When asked if there was any scope of reconciliation between the two, he replied, “Of course, the father’s blessings are with his son. How long can differences last between a father and a son?”
While Mulayam’s press conference was on, Akhilesh tweeted: “Netaji zindabad, Samajwadi Party zindabad”.
Neither Samajwadi Party MLA Shivpal Yadav nor Sunil Singh, the president of Lok Dal who offered Mulayam to take over the party, attended the press conference.
Mulayam said he would not attend the national convention of the party scheduled in Agra on October 5.
“Akhilesh said he will never leave the party but he left the party. Samajwadi Party is mine; he had left the party,” the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister announced.
Mulayam said in view of the current political scenario in the country, all socialists should unite and strengthen the Samajwadi Party.
Attacking the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government at the Centre and the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam said demonetisation and Goods and Service Tax (GST) had crippled the country’s economy and the farmers were cheated in the name of farm loan waiver.
The power struggle within the SP has split the Yadav family with Mulayam siding with his brother Shivpal much to the chagrin of his son Akhilesh.
The feud came to the fore in August last year. On January 1 this year, an emergency session of the party announced Akhilesh as the national president replacing Mulayam.
On Saturday, Akhilesh held a state convention of the party in Lucknow. The party’s workers did put up some hoardings and banners with Mulayam’s pictures on them but his brother Shivpal’s name or pictures were missing. The party did not invite Shivpal to the event.
Addressing the convention, Akhilesh said his father’s blessings were with him.
A son has betrayed his father. He (Akhilesh Yadav) had said that three months after the (Uttar Pradesh) elections, he will return the party presidentship to me but he didn’t. He did not keep his words
MULAYAM SINGH YADAV, Samajwadi Party patriarch