New Delhi: After near decimation in Lok Sabha polls, soul-searching within Samajwadi Party has begun. SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav’s fixation with Muslim votes is being blamed within the party for polarisation in Uttar Pradesh.
Sections of party leaders close to UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav claimed that the SP chief wasted too much time wooing, first, the Imam of Jama Masjid Shahi Ahmed Bukhari, and, then, the chief of the Jamait Ulema Hind Maulana Arshad Madni in the hope of tactical voting by Muslims in favour of the party. “Besides courting these Maulanas, the party was already banking heavily on senior minister Azam Khan, who kept shooting off irresponsible statements, which in the end hurt party prospect. Now that the party will sit to find faults, leaders will do well to admit that they had gone too far in Muslim appeasement,” said a senior SP leader.
Though a section of party leaders close to party chief sought to put the blame on the UP chief minister, sources said Mr Akhilesh Yadav had hardly been the face of the SP campaign in Lok Sabha elections.
