Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav scored a major victory on Monday against his father and Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav by gaining control over the party’s election symbol, the cycle, a day before the process of electioneering formally starts in the State.
The Election Commission (EC), which has been hearing the factions headed by Akhilesh and Mulayam, allocated the symbol to the son. The Akhilesh-led faction is SP, and is hence entitled to use the election symbol, it ruled.
“Terms of para 15 of the Symbols Order, the Commission hereby answers the Issue, N. 2, by holding that the group led by Akhilesh Yadav is the Samajwadi Party and is entitled to use its name and its reserved symbol `bicycle’ for the purposes of the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968,” said the EC in an order signed by Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi, and Election Commissioners OP Rawat and AK Joti.
This formalises Akhilesh’s anointment as SP chief and reduces Mulayam to a mere faction leader. Moreover, it authorises the CM to go ahead and seal an alliance with the Congress and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), a move that he had been pushing to make without making much headway because of opposition from his father.
In an interview to BusinessLine last month, Akhilesh had said: “I am confident of getting a majority. But if we had a grand alliance, we would cross 300 seats. It is up to Netaji to decide on such matters.”
Change of guard After getting the party symbol, the 43-year-old Chief Minister visited his father. The move was designed to soften the blow after his supporters stuck his nameplate outside the SP chief’s office in Lucknow on Monday morning, signifying the change of guard in the party.
Mulayam, on his part, accused Akhilesh of being “anti-Muslim” and declared that he would “fight against my son” if he did not follow his advice. He also hinted that he would move court if the EC decided against his claim for the party’s election symbol.
The two factions had presented supporting evidence to the EC for their claim over the party symbol. Akhilesh’s faction had claimed he had the support of two-thirds of the party while Mulayam claimed he was still the party chief. Akhilesh had removed Mulayam from the party chief’s post in a convention held in Lucknow on January 1. Mulayam called the move illegal and moved EC to stake claim over the party symbol.
Continuing his opposition to his son, Mulayam told a meeting of the party workers in Lucknow on Monday that Akhilesh refuses to listen to him and has a “negative” approach towards Muslims. Many workers in the party meeting turned emotional and appealed to Mulayam to “save the party”. Mulayam, however, blamed Akhilesh for the split and said: “If he does not listen to me, I will fight against him.”
However, there is no possibility of the father contesting against the son, as Akhilesh is a member of the UP’s legislative council and is not contesting the Assembly elections.
Also, now that Akhilesh has won the war over the party symbol, his support among the party workers is only expected to grow. Already, in their meeting with Mulayam on Monday morning, a lot of workers were seen appealing to him to “bless” his son. Some workers even interrupted him and called for a truce.
“What can I do, he (Akhilesh) is not ready to listen to me. I had called him in the morning but he did not turn up. Whatever I tell him, he conveys to Ramgopal (Yadav). He is my son but he is working for my opponents,” Mulayam told the workers.
Made sacrifices “I have made a lot of sacrifices for the party. He is not listening to me… He has sacked a number of ministers including a woman. Senior ministers were sacked without any reasons,” he added.
Mulayam’s stress on his Muslim voters in his interaction with party workers on Monday morning is indicative of the unease in the SP over its traditional voter base shifting to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which has already announced its candidates. The BSP has decided to give ticket to 97 Muslims out of the total 403 seats and is clearly hoping to wean the community, which constitutes about 19-21 per cent of the population, away from the SP.
The districts going to polls in the first phase in UP are Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Hapur, Bulanshahr, Aligarh, Mathura, Hathras, Agra, Firozabad, Etah and Kasganj.