Family feud is irrelevant

AZAMGARH/VARANASI: The crowd waiting under a sweltering sun cheered when UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s helicopter landed at Bagehla, about 30km from Azamgarh, more than an hour behind schedule.

Young men perched on trees dotting the green fields shouted slogans when he emerged from his copter. Akhilesh reciprocated. He waved, and shook hands with those who leaned forward from behind the pickets. “Do you see those jeans-wearing, smartphone-carrying youth …They are my biggest advantage in this elections,” Akhilesh said.

This was his seventh rally in a single day in Azamgarh, the parliamentary constituency of his father and Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The 77-year-old leader, called Netaji by his legions of followers, hasn’t been to his constituency for several months and had skipped the campaign after a family feud that engulfed his extended clan. But the feud is of little significance for the Yadavs of Azamgarh — as long as they have a caring bhaiya or brother in Akhilesh. “He is the natural claimant of Netaji’s legacy,” said Krishna Yadav (70), standing out in a young crowd. “Which family does not have fights?”

The CM’S whirlwind rallies reflected his father’s strategy Mulayam campaigned in the Yadav pocket boroughs at the end of his campaign and consolidated the community’s votes with his presence. Besides the Yadav sup port, Muslims too are behind Akhilesh, one of his strategists said. “It is existential battle for Muslims. They know only the SP can stop the BJP.” Azamgarh is a Yadav bastion with a strong Mus lim population. Mulayam bucked a so-called “Modi wave” in 2014 to win this seat.