Samajwadi Party feud widens; Akhilesh Yadav may skip party function

Lucknow: In yet another sign of worsening infighting in Samajwadi Party, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Wednesday announced that he will embark on his ‘Vikas Rath Yatra’ alone from November 3 which will make him skip the party’s silver jubilee celebrations slated to begin two days later.

In a letter written to Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav, the chief minister has ‘informed’ him that he will embark on his yatra from November 3.

The Samajwadi Party will be celebrating its silver jubilee in Lucknow on November 5 and the chief minister’s decision to begin his yatra on November 3 implies that he will not be attending the party function.

Mr Akhilesh Yadav’s likely absence from the Samajwadi Party function is yet another development in the deepening crisis in the Samajwadi Party and family. Mr Akhilesh Yadav’s supporters have already declared that they will not attend the silver jubilee function.

The copies of the letter to the party president, which were released to the media on Wednesday, have been sent to Prof Ramgopal Yadav and Mr Shivpal Yadav.

The Chief Minister has further said that he will be informing the district units about his yatra route from time to time. The state party has not been informed of the Chief Minister’s yatra route and sources said that the youth leaders, including those expelled from the party, will be taking care of all arrangements during the campaign in which Mr Yadav will tell the people of the achievements of his government.

Apart from reaching out to people and galvanising party workers, Akhilesh’s yatra is seen as a move to truncate the influence of Shivpal, who had been appointed the new state party president in his place.

Earlier in the day, Akhilesh, Shivpal Yadav, and Mulayam held a closed-door meeting at party supremo’s 5 Vikramaditya Marg residence to discuss poll strategy.

According to party sources, Akhilesh is adamant on his demands of revoking the expulsion of youth leaders, some of whom are MLCs, and having his say in the ticket distribution.

Akhilesh had earlier announced his decision to take out the yatra from October 3 through his Twitter handle with a picture in which he was seen sitting inside a bus.