New Delhi: With the prospect of the Election Commission freezing the Samajwadi Party’s “bicycle” symbol looming large, both father Mulayam Singh Yadav and son Akhilesh Yadav, who are locked in a bitter fight over the control of the party, have a Plan B ready.
While the party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav intends to merge his faction with another party, Lok Dal, and use its symbol — two bullocks and a farmer tilling land, Akhilesh Yadav, on the other hand, is likely to float his own party, the Akhil Bharatiya Samajwadi Party, with “motorcycle” as its symbol.
On Thursday, Akhilesh Yadav held a meeting with party workers and assured them that he would soon start campaigning.
On Friday, the full Election Commission, headed by chief election commissioner Nasim Zaidi, will hear both the sides and take a decision on the party symbol based on the deposition by lawyers of both the camps.
On Thursday morning, Lok Dal national president Sunil Singh had a meeting with Mulayam Singh Yadav, Shivpal Yadav and Amar Singh, apparently to look at the options of a merger.
The meeting, at Mulayam Singh Yadav’s New Delhi residence on Ashoka Road, was also attended by a couple of lawyers, who will represent the Mulayam faction at the Election Commission.
Emerging from the meeting, Amar Singh told this newspaper that though efforts were on resolve differences, “in the event of EC freezing the symbol, we are looking at the options of Mulayam faction contesting on the Lok Dal symbol.”
Asked whether the Mulayam faction would be called Lok Dal, Sunil Singh said, “We are looking at all options.” The Lok Dal website claims that the outfit was founded by former PM Charan Singh in 1980 and had all the top regional satraps. The names of the regional leaders listed by the website include Devi Lal, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Nitish Kumar, among others.
