Samajwadi Party (SP) supremo Mulayam Singh on Tuesday assured his son and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav that he will be the chief ministerial face of the party in the upcoming state assembly election. According to sources in the Mulayam camp, the Samajwadi Party patriarch reportedly maintained that he will remain the party’s national president.
Mulayam Singh Yadav also urged Akhilesh to withdraw the letter he had sent to the Election Commission (EC) claiming support of 212 out of 229 MLAs.
Akhilesh Yadav had a 90-minute meeting with his father this morning. Mulayam Singh’s confidante Shivpal Yadav and close aide Amar Singh were not present at the meeting, said reports.
The UP Chief Minister met his father and SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav on Tuesday, sending signals of a rapprochement between the bickering factions in the ruling party. The 90-minute one-to-one meeting at Mulayam’s residence took place against the backdrop of the SP patriarch yesterday declaring his son as the chief ministerial candidate of the party.
In signs of reconciliation, Akhilesh walked down to his father’s bungalow next door – the houses are interconnected – for the crucial meeting, the outcome of which will definitely have a bearing on SP’s electoral prospects in the poll-bound state.
Party insiders said Akhilesh’s warring uncle Shivpal Yadav and Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh, often described as an outsider in the Yadav clan, were not present at today’s father-son meeting.
Amid a bitter tussle for control over the party, Mulayam had never projected Akhilesh as SP chief ministerial candidate and had rather asserted several times that only he will decide who will be the CM if SP came back to power in UP, where assembly elections will be held in seven phases from next month.
Party observers pointed out that the absence of Shivpal and Amar Singh at today’s meeting was quite significant as their presence might have put off Akhilesh who is not on the same page with his uncle and the Rajya Sabha MP.
(With ANI PT I inputs)
Source: dnaindia.com