LUCKNOW: The fire of internal feud in the Samajwadi Party spread across the state, diminishing the chances of a patch-up, with supporters of CM Akhilesh Yadav and his father Mulayam Singh Yadav
engaged in a show of strength at different places across the state on Monday.
Senior SP leader and former minister Beni Prasad Verma, who is an RS member and close to Mulayam, shot off a letter to UP’s Chief Electoral Officer lodging a formal complaint against one of Akhilesh’s loyalist ministers Arvind Singh Gope for allegedly violating the model code of conduct by spreading casteism in Barabanki.
Gope is one among those three Akhilesh loyalist ministers who were denied ticket by party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav. In fact, Beni’s son Rakesh Verma had replaced Gope in Barabanki as party candidate.
Another factional turn of party’s family feud came to the fore on Monday when some of the loyalists of dethroned SP state chief Shivpal Yadav were stopped from entering the party headquarters in the state capital by the police, on the other as per the reports, Akhilesh supporters captured party’s newly-built sprawling office building in CM’s home town Etawah.
Meanwhile, unseated state unit chief Shivpal Yadav called a meeting of his loyalist party workers at party office in Lucknow whereby he accused expelled party leader and Akhilesh supporter Ram Gopal Yadav of conniving against the party leadership.
Clarifying the stand of Mulayam’s faction on the party symbol crisis, the decision on which is pending with the Election Commission, ahead of crucial state Assembly polls, Shivpal assured his supporters in case none of the contenders got the symbol ‘bicycle’ and was allotted a new symbol, even then the
Samajwadi Party, headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav was ready to go into the poll with full might.
He said, however, the other faction led by Akhikesh and supported by Ram Gopal were allegedly pitching in for symbol ‘Motorcycle’ to contest elections on.
Refusing to acknowledge the national convention of January 1 which anointed chief minister Akhilkesh yadav as party’s new national president and Mulayam Singh Yadav as party patron, Shivpal called it
‘illegal’ and ‘unconstitutional’ since it was not convened by the party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav.
“Ram Gopal did not have the right to call a national convention for the party constitution authorises only the party president to convene a notational convention and that too once in three years,” Shivpal asserted adding that under any excigency, it could be called by the party chief only if 40 per cent of party
representatives signed it.
Referring to the party feud, Shivpal launched a direct attack on Ram Gopal saying that he had been preparing for such a showdown for the last three months. “He (Ram Gopal) had been collecting the
signatures of party workers and legislators to firm the documents against the party leadership to execute a well formulated rebellion in the party,” stated Shivpal.