SP campaign gets boost as Shivpal appeals for support to Dimple
Dimple issues emotional appeal to Mainpuri voters after BJP candidate visits Mulayam’s samadhi, describes Shivpal as his political mentor
KANPUR/AGRA: Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party-Lohia (PSP-L) chief Shivpal Yadav, the politically estranged uncle of Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav, boosted the campaign of Dimple Yadav in the Mainpuri Lok Sabha bypoll by appealing to his supporters to back the SP nominee. Dimple Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav’s wife, is contesting the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat that fell vacant after the death of her father-in-law, SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav on October 10. The bypoll is scheduled for December 5.
After breaking off with Akhilesh, Shivpal had floated his own party. Despite the SP naming him as a star campaigner, Shivpal had maintained a studied silence until now.
“Dimple ke liye jee jaan se jutiye .. yahi netaji ko sachchi shraddhanjali hogi (campaign wholeheartedly for Dimple; this would be a true tribute to netaji),” Shivpal told party workers at Saifai’s SS Memorial Inter College on Wednesday.
Shivpal, the younger brother of Mulayam Singh Yadav, is an MLA from Jaswantnagar, one of the five assembly segments that make up the Mainpuri Lok Sabha constituency.
Shivpal was not present when Dimple filed her nomination on Monday in the presence of family members including Mulayam’s brother Abhay Ram, her husband Akhilesh, SP national general secretary Ram Gopal Yadav, former MPs Tej Pratap Yadav and Dharmendra Yadav among others.
Lending more significance to Shivpal’s decision to back Dimple is the fact that even BJP candidate Raghuraj Shakya, a former SP lawmaker, had been claiming Shivpal’s “blessings” and described him as his “political mentor”. Shakya had visited Mulayam’s “Samadhi” at the Yadavs’’ ancestral village Saifai in Etawah before filing his nomination on Wednesday.
Dimple too, invoked Mulayam’s legacy with an emotional appeal to Mainpuri’s voters, stating that Mainpuri would always belong to netaji (Mulayam).
“The by-election in Mainpuri, is for the respect that all Mainpuri voters and I have for ‘netaji’. I have all reasons to believe that masses here would maintain the dignity and respect they had for ‘netaji’,” she said in her appeal to the Mainpuri voters.
“Netaji always stood for selfrespect of masses and it is time we work on principles for which our leader represented and lived,” she added.
She also addressed a meeting of women in which she targeted the BJP government.
“Inflation is at its peak, gas cylinder is costing around Rs 1100 making things difficult for women who have to run the house,” Dimple said.