“Since Akhilesh Yadav is flexing his muscles to show that he is chief minister, then why is he not taking action against Shivpal Yadav, who is embroiled in multiple scams and controversies?” Later at a press interaction at the VVIP guest house where he is staying, the Rajya Sabha member indirectly hit out at his colleague Amar Singh as the “outsider” who was behind the crisis.
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While Akhilesh has tried to cast all this as a political dispute and not a family feud, his second uncle Ram Gopal Yadav has made statements to the contrary, even criticizing Mulayam for removing his son as party president.
Shivpal, however, defended Amar Singh saying an organisation is strengthened by taking everyone along. The fault lines have become more pronounced with Shivpal Yadav and Amar Singh on the other side, and Mulayam struggling to strike a balance between the two groups.
Akhilesh Yadav is trying to change the image of his government.
Asserting that the Samajwadi Party is not in any kind of trouble, party leader Shivpal Singh Yadav on Thursday said if he is given a responsibility, he would work to the fullest to fulfil it. Shivpal said that “whoever is given responsibility, whatever it be… we have to follow that”. “He should have been asked to resign”.
Escalating tensions between nephew and uncle turned ugly, this week, with Mulayam appointing Shivpal as the head of the party in Uttar Pradesh, a post which Akhilesh held since the summer of 2009. “I don’t want to reveal my pain to Netaji”. “It is natural. he should take decisions”.
“He is the same person, who used netaji’s simplicity to make an incharge of the party (Shivpal was earlier made SP UP incharge)”.
Akhilesh Yadav had sacked the UP chief secretary Deepak Singhal after he had apparently attended a party in Delhi thrown by Amar Singh. Forced by his father to appoint him, the CM chose to sack him after the latter attended Amar Singh’s dinner.
Asked about losing important portfolios, he said, “I can not raise questions on which circumstances the Chief Minister has changed my departments. No one has the capacity to disobey what he says”, Shivpal said.
Stripped of key ministries, Mr. Shivpal had earlier in the day said he would carry out his new responsibility with diligence and contended he had no problem with Akhilesh as CM candidate next year, if “Netaji decides” as much. Speaking informally to reporters in Delhi, Mulayam had called Shivpal, who is his younger brother, a grassroots leader who had a happy-go-lucky disposition.
However, she added, if true, Mulayam should immediately retire from active politics and not be influenced by “putra moh” (love for his son).
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Samajwadi Party MLAs meet Shivpal Yadav.
