Amid ongoing family feud, Akhilesh hands over list of candidates to Mulayam for UP poll

LUCKNOW: Amidst clear indications of a possible escalation of an ongoing family feud in Samajwadi party’s first family, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav reportedly submitted his own list of 403 probable candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections to his father and party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav here on late Sunday evening.

Pitching the 403 names recommended by him as the winnable candidates, Akhilesh is believed to have met Mulayam Singh Yadav who, as per close SP sources, did not approve his son’s way of going ahead with the list bypassing all the senior party leaders.

However, there was no official confirmation of the reports from the SP camp. On the other, party’s state unit chief  Shivpal Yadav said that any act of indiscipline by anyone in the party would not be tolerated.
 
Akhilesh has been harping on his role in ticket distribution all this long as he was leading the party into elections. “There won’t be any compromise on this,” said a party functionary of Akhilesh camp.

While submitting his own list to Mulayam, Akhilesh is believed to have raised questions over the winnability of 175 candidates announced by SP state president so far.

Earlier this week, Akhilesh had called a meeting of nearly 75 MLAs, mostly first timers, promising them tickets with the direction to be poll ready in their respective constituencies. Meanwhile, the chief minister was believed to have taken affront to the fact that he was kept out of the process of ticket distribution by uncle Shivpal.

Earlier in the evening, in another incident, party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav had appointed controversial state cabinet minister  Gayatri Prajapati party’s national secretary much to the chagrin of Akhilesh.