Many Samajwadi Party MLAs pray Mulayam will back Akhilesh Yadav

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Saeed Ahmed, Phoolpur: “Akhilesh is leader of the party’s legislature group and hence he is my leader… Mulayam is SP national president and Shivpal state president; I will follow the directive of the party leadership. The party’s interests are priority.”

Brij Lal Sonkar, Mehnagar: “Along with 90 per cent of the SP’s leaders and workers, I have faith in Akhilesh and am sure he will be the chief minister again after the 2017 polls. He is also Netaji’s son. Netaji is party president
but I am sure that he will never ask Akhilesh to step down and take charge himself.”

Indrajeet Kori, Ghatampur: “The SP is my leader and Mulayam Singh is its top leader. I will follow his directive… I believe Mulayam will never ask Akhilesh to step down to take charge himself.”

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Vijma Yadav, Pratappur: “The chief minister has done lots of development work and has fulfilled public expectations. A gentle person like him should be not removed as CM or CM nominee. But in the end I will follow the directive of Netaji.”

Brajesh Katheria, Kishni: “I will follow Mulayam. These are only speculations. Netaji could never remove Akhilesh as CM.”

Indal Kumar, Malihabad: “Akhilesh is the undisputed leader with a clean image who has set a milestone in development. The public is fan of him, youth are his followers. I respect Netaji and his leadership but if there is a division in the party over change of leadership, I will go with Akhileshji.”

Clash outside office

Hours before Monday’s Samajwadi Party meeting in Lucknow, supporters of Akhilesh and Shivpal clashed outside party headquarters. A heavy police force led by Lucknow SSP Manzil Saini, deployed beforehand, used force against them.