Samajwadi Party rift widens, Mulayam cancels dinner after party MLAs warned not to attend

Lucknow: It appears that all is not well in the Samajwadi Party and things have complicated after the party's humiliating defeat in the 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

In yet another instance showing the widening rift in the party, Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav had to cancel a dinner for party's 47 newly-elected legislators to be held on Wednesday.

According to NDTV, the dinner was called off as the newly-elected SP MLAs were warned to attend only those meetings called by party chief Akhilesh Yadav, who was elected Leader of the SP Legislature Party in both the Houses of the Uttar Pradesh Legislature.

SP veterans Azam Khan and Shivpal Singh Yadav were conspicuous by their absence from the meeting.

SP leader Lalai Singh had proposed that the party's lawmakers from both houses must only attend meetings called by Akhilesh Yadav as the Legislature Party chief. However, Mulayam's invite to the MLAs for the dinner was not mentioned in the meeting of the SP leaders yesterday.

Mulayam Singh Yadav was the party's chief till January, when his son Akhilesh staged a coup and wrested control of the party from his father and his younger brother Shivpal Yadav. 

At the meeting of SP MLAs and MLCs, the former chief minister was unanimously elected as the combined leader of the party in both the state Assembly and Council, SP spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary said.

Besides, Akhilesh was also authorised to pick the leader of the party in the Legislative Council, he added. Akhilesh is a member of the Upper House, where senior SP leader Ahmed Hasan leads the party.

Akhilesh had yesterday nominated senior most party MLA Ram Govind Chaudhary as the leader of the SP in the Assembly, paving the way for his becoming the LOP in the Assembly.

Commenting on the choice of Chaudhary for the key post, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) accused the SP of "acting under BJP's pressure" to deny senior leader Azam Khan the position.

"SP acted under BJP's pressure to deny the position of LOP to a dynamic and strong leader like Azam Khan, which could have posed problems for them in the legislature," state RLD chief Masood Ahmed alleged.

"Had Khan been made the Leader of Opposition, he would have retained his government bungalow and there would also have been no question on his Maulana Jauhar University in Rampur. So, BJP exerted pressure on Netaji (Mulayam Singh) to stop it," he added.